Old Beginnings
by TheAlassinSane
Summary: An even further back-story to Why We Fight and Cael from SRM. How a Breton noblewoman became involved with and left her family for a Forsworn Chief in the 4th Era, 180. Featuring grief, betrayal, sisterly love, equine acrobatics, the curiosities of why Forsworn don't visit village inns and a horse called Nipper.
1. Chapter 1: Noble Intentions

"No, Charlize, that is not how you do it!" A cry echoed off the mountainside and into the Sea of Ghosts beneath the cliffs as parade of horses and a cart carrying more luggage than an army ascended Skyrim's blinding white roads from High Rock.

The most comfortable rider in the convoy rolled her eyes. How could her sister not be able to ride the practical draught horses of Skyrim? Considering the show horses they were raised with, they should be at ease on even a skittish elk.

Clucks of disdain cascaded down the ranks like falling pebbles. The offender of etiquette, Charlize, was shifting uncomfortably and trying to ride her horse side-saddle like she did at home. The lack of a side-pommel or stirrups would have resulted in her slipping buttocks-first into the snow if the family's manservant hadn't caught her first.

"That isn't how these Nord saddles work, mi'lady." He explained sheepishly as he helped her back into the correct position. His hands were on far too many private parts for him to know where to look.

"Look to how your sister rides! Adilia, show your sister." The mother cried out while sniffing in repulsion. "She may be uncomely but at least she knows what she's doing." After a momentary pause she sniffed harder, realising she'd summarised her daughter's life.

"Where? I can't see her in this blasted blizzard! She's too blonde." Charlize replied heedlessly.

Adilia rolled her eyes again into her ridiculous fur hat, the tip of which was flopping into her green eyes. She could be seen perfectly well.

"Just ride, Charlie." Their older sister sighed as she clutched her horse's neck in a vice to stay in the slanting saddle. "It's freezing here." She added self-consciously. The attempt to justify her strange riding position didn't go unnoticed but Adilia shuddered, she had a point. The six Bretons were completely bedecked in furs. Skyrim had a climate she could never see herself adjusting to.

"You alright, Brady?" The unstable sister winked from her horse's neck as he scurried past to return to his mount.

The man blushed so hard his cheeks were a beacon among his black hair and robes. "Perfectly, Lady Rona."

"She is not a lady yet, Braden. None of them are." Their father reminded him. His horse was no higher than the others' and yet instead of a matted fur saddle his posture made him appear as if he sat on a throne. Braden instantly bowed before it and busied himself in checking the straps of the cart to hide his embarrassment.

"We should be reaching Solitude soon, Lord Martel." He pointed out in a hurry to change the subject as he mounted his horse.

"Then do continue."

As they continued their harrowing journey, Adilia turned her gaze to the bulging cart in boredom. Braden's attempt to tighten some of the straps resulted in the opposite occurring, several boxes flew free and plummeted into the piles of snow. To her amusement some made it to the cliff edge where they rolled into the abyss of the sea. Bringing along dozens of boxes because they all needed twelve different outfits for one week in the city of shops was one of the most ridiculous things her family had done so far.

"How soon is 'soon', Brady?" Charlize complained. "These horses are so slow."

"Err… Should be the other side of this mountain." Braden deliberated.

"How do you know it's a mountain when you can't see the top?!" Charlize squeaked to compete with the howling wind.

They'd gone the long and cold way round and they all knew it. Adilia had watched her family look to the sea the entire journey, hiding from any acknowledgement of the mountains they'd come this way to avoid. Journey's end was near but as both the weather and the incline thinned out to make way for the forested road that led to civilisation, the exhausted women cried out.

"Is that, is that grass?" Lady Martel asked in disbelief. "And oh look, a little pathway!" She turned her horse in direction of it rather than the road where Braden stopped in conflict of where to go.

"Othella, the ways of the wild are not familiar to you." Her husband warned. She began to pull her horse back but it was too little too late, the interest of their daughters was caught. With the absence of the wind they began to hear the faint clashes of battle.

"Is that…" Rona murmured as she and her youngest sister edged forwards to get a closer look.

"The barbarians?" Charlize whispered with eyes as wide as they would have been if she was telling the scariest tale in the world. By the way her mother paled, she might as well have been.

"This far north?" She clenched her horse's reins like they were a lifeline and looked to her husband. "But you said…"

"Impossible." Lord Martel replied astutely. His wife began to relax, then an arrow flew into a tree next to them. Her scream scared all the bird flocks out of the area.

Braden was the first to react to the pandemonium of rearing horses. He grabbed the bridle of Rona's first, even though the panicking Lady Othella was right next to him. It quietened instantly once it realised the only threat was Othella's whimpering. Rona nodded at him, shaken but unharmed. Charlize's horse was even faster to calm. She seemed to have enjoyed the sudden change of altitude, even though it almost de-seated her again.

"I'm here, my lady." Braden finally reassured Othella after checking on all her daughters. She nodded in between dramatic breaths.

In the midst of all this Adilia was attempting to make her blasé horse move past the bushes of the fir trees to get a closer look at these supposed barbarians. Then the battle-hardy creature began to snort at something that disturbed the foliage.

In a flash of gold the arrow's true target revealed himself among the spooked horses and dived into the field with the assailants. His accomplices soon followed but their slower pace allowed Lord Martel to grab their leader's attention in the confusion.

"What is going on here?" He demanded as lightning sparks fizzled in the hands of the towering elf.

The Justicar's head turned very slowly. When his ethereal yellow eyes met the Breton's with a sneer, there was no doubt as to who was looking down on the other. "Bandits have interfered with official Thalmor business.". Each word dripped with so much detesting that exactly who he was calling bandits was unclear. "We suggest you be on your way, half-breed."

The Breton lord turned red but the Thalmor was ready with a sky-reaching eyebrow that was somehow more threatening than the battle behind them. The sparks flickered in his hands again.

"Father, maybe this isn't the right man to be asking for directions." Adilia rushed forward between them, abandoning her quest for a better point of view.

"Ah, look at that!" The Justicar remarked dryly. "One of the mutts has a brain." The sparks that had died down burst forth to electrocute a bandit who'd crossed the path in an attempt to sneak up on a Thalmor soldier.

"Let us go before they return, my lord." Braden pleaded as he'd calmed Othella and her horse down enough to get back on his own.

"Then…Yes." Lord Martel said idly as he glared at the diminishing back of the Thalmor Justicar. "Why are you delaying, Braden? We are expected before nightfall." He snapped his fingers at the man and they practically bolted forwards at a trot until they were out of sight of the clearing.

Adilia followed them at a glum pace. Half-heartedly she cast a look back over her shoulder and was surprised to find she briefly had the clearest view of it. The bandits and Thalmor had moved on too far to see how the tide of the battle had turned but some things were left in its wake. The fallen bodies of two gleaming gold Thamor and a bandit for example. Only one of them groaned and tried to crawl away to cover. A cascade of lightning suddenly came from behind a hollow in the ground and was abruptly cut short. No more sounds of battle were heard and the fallen bandit's allies came out of their positions for him. Adilia frowned, she'd never seen bandits like them. The fur they wore was scant and copper-coloured, and they had adorned themselves with skulls. She was over fifty metres away and yet one of the bandits tensed up and looked directly at her. She wasn't sure if he squinted or scowled at her through his feral face-paint, then he reached for the spiked bow on his back.

An army at her heels wouldn't have made her flee back to her family faster.

* * *

The sun had set by the time the Martel family made it to Solitude's gates. The sky burnt orange but the city glowed. After so long in blizzards with only a torch to guide them, lanterns were like a warm bed to their eyes. Almost blindingly so.

One by one they dismounted at the gates to the inner courtyard. Gradually they realised that they'd come across the rarely heard guard gossip.

"I told you, these fancy milk-drinkers in their fine furs drop the tankard in front of you on purpose, I've seen it myself!" The guard shut his mouth as soon as Lord Martel scowled at him. Deep inside he was thanking the Divines that their helmets hid their faces.

Adilia stood by the Khajiit camp her parents refused to acknowledge and exchanged amused glances with the leader. Her parents had refused to dismount their horses at the stables so a young apologetic guard was being forced to play stable-boy with Braden. They were trying to get all the horses away before Lord Martel turned into a Dwarven Centurion with all his sighing.

"A pretty trinket for the lady?" Said a purring voice from behind her. Adilia turned to see the caravan's leader holding out a deep green pendant shaped like a tooth.

"What's it worth?" She asked warily.

The Khajiit grinned. "Not 'how much?' Dar'jiin thinks the lady is wise." He then shrugged from his sitting position and spun the pendant by its black string from his claw. "What is it worth? Nothing. Pretty, though. It is a gift, Dar'jiin likes those who can smile with him."

He held it out to her. It swung and glinted in the orange light of the many lanterns. There were something underwhelming about it that drew her to it more than all her gold jewellry. "Then thank you." Adilia smiled and quickly tied the pendant under her fur cloak and green robes so it would stay unseen.

"May the road deliver you to somewhere warmer than this cold bird's nest, Breton of High Rock." He said to her and returned to his wares like nothing had happened.

"On that we can agree on." She grumbled back. Dar'jiin laughed, her mother frowned at him but found nothing untoward; she thought he was coughing on a hairball.

"Are you sure that was wise?" A female of Dar'jiin's camp asked him quietly from the firepit.

"Eh, what's the harm? Dar'jiin was given a token he can't sell but was more than happy with just his life. The fools think they actually compensated him." Dar'jiin replied. The female sighed in dissatisfaction but left it at that.

Charlize was already blowing a raspberry at a guard behind a nearby tower's slit window when Braden and the young guard returned in record time, only to be turned into cart horses to pull the luggage up to the city doors.

Their mother managed to look more appalled at her youngest daughter's behaviour than she had at nearly being shot with an arrow. "That is not how a young lady acts!" She gasped and propelled Charlize into the opening doors of Solitude. She ranted all the way, purposefully not mentioning her daughter's name to keep it from the guard who was now snickering.

Rona and Adilia shrugged at each other, following them side-by-side. Neither looked back at the guard their father tipped to watch over their cart until Braden sent somebody to collect its contents. Nor did Adilia pay attention to the borderline racist glare of distrust he sent the Khajiit she'd been laughing with. It would seem more out of place if it didn't happen every time they went to a city.

"You've got to stop doing that for every family who comes here, Howard." Muttered the guard who'd taken the bribe to the young and breathless one.

"But they're noble!" Howard hissed back.

They shut the doors behind the family and the guard shook his head in shame. "Don't pick up the tankard, Howard. Don't pick up the tankard."

* * *

Oddly, they found the inside of the city less blinding to their eyes than the outside, though the momentary relief was put off by the sheer amount of smoke in The Winking Skeever.

"We'll only have to stay here for the night, Braden will have our proper rooms sorted tomorrow." Lord Martel told them as he, too, tried to stem the stream of tears from his eyes. "Go to the largest room you can find, I'll sort it out. An inn at night is no place for Charlie."

The women didn't hesitate for a moment before making their way to the stairs with forearms over their eyes and noses, flinching every time they went past a smoking candle. Charlize coughed dramatically but she got no sympathy from the soldiers and manual laborer patrons of the inn. Adilia, however, stayed in the shadows behind her father. The flying spittle, raucous laughter and staggering drunks supporting themselves on every passing female would have to be coped with, the talks that were going on at the bar Lord Martel strode up to were far too interesting to miss.

Four Imperial soldiers still in their Legion armour were huddled over the bar in deep talks with the owner of the inn. The conversation was apparently reaching a stagnant point because when he saw the lord fresh in from the street he beckoned him over with a new vigour in his eyes.

"Did you see the amount of lanterns they have out there?!" The innkeeper asked in hushed whispers, cloth and tankard in hand.

Lord Martel stiffened at being addressed so directly, but his urge to grumble was stronger than the one to reinforce decorum. "They almost blinded my family and I."

"I don't even know why they've got us down here." A soldier to his right mumbled over his untouched drink. "Who in Oblivion would be coming to the capital when they've got Markarth at their heels?"

"The High King's men need to let us prepare, did you hear about Hammerfell? They cast out the Dominion, they'll be coming over here next." Another soldier put in.

"We came across some Thalmor on our journey here. On the North road." Lord Martel added nervously. The soldier concerned over the Dominion grunted to further his point.

"You came here from High Rock using the coastline?!" The innkeeper asked in disbelief. "Still, I can't blame you for wanting to avoid the Reach. You won't have heard anything good come out of there for a few years."

A man so sagged down in his chair that nobody had noticed him straightened his Redguard uniform and rose. "Let's be straight here, Corpulus." He slurred at a point behind the innkeeper's ear. "We just got back from fighting those knife-ears. You think everybody's suddenly going to play nice? Nuh-uh."

"Shhh, I have elves in here!" Corpulus hissed and frantically scanned his patrons for elves in earshot. He nervously smiled at those that were.

The guard continued as if he'd never been interrupted. "We need to be preparing our city. Using up all the oil to see bandits that aren't there is…" He waved his hands wildly, thinking that was enough to convey the insanity of it. "Think of all the barrels we could be making. This city has one hill. Roll enough fire barrels down it and poof!" His hands flew up again. "The knife-ears love fire barrels." He faded into bitter chuckles. The few elven patrons began to scowl over at his raising voice. Corpulus gave up polishing tankards and used the cloth to wipe his own brow.

"Shut it, Pion, we have no need for your war stories here." The most sober of the soldiers chastised.

"Says the Legionnaire." Pion mumbled as he sank back into his chair.

The innkeeper turned back from giving a young boy instructions and seemed to be suddenly reminded Lord Martel was there. "I'm sorry, what did you need?"

"Uhh…" The lord tried to remember through a confused frown but one matter kept resurfacing to his mind. "What do you mean by bandits?"

"Oh, well–"

A soldier butted in before the innkeeper could tell every last rumour that had come through the inn. The hour was late and he had no time for stories. "You heard of the Reachmen down in Markarth? Now they call themselves Forsworn and they're angry. A few were supposedly spotted further north than they should be and bandits have been more active than usual. Somehow the two were put together and now we're wasting resources waiting for them."

"So somebody told the High King it was a good idea to put the Legion on goddamn guard duty." Said a red-faced soldier who'd been silent until now. He poked the near-snoring Pion in the ribs as he did so.

"They've never cared about anything but the Reach for centuries," said the soldier who'd shut Pion up. "Gods, I got better taxes from them than I did any Jarl! They just needed a goat once in a while."

Adilia's eyebrows raised at this new information, but her father tensed up like a volcano that was about to erupt. "Now you listen here and listen well." He quietly seethed to all of them at the bar he placed his hands on. "The 'Forsworn' are savages and witches. They took my son as they took all of Markarth. I don't care for Talos but Ulfric Stormcloak cast them back out into the dirt they belong in. That's a sight more than the Legion ever did."

The soldier's hackles began to raise. The lord's glare sat them back down, but Pion returned to the conversation much too late. "Hey now, we were out fighting the Great War while you… What do you high folk do?" The soldier next to him stuffed a bread roll in his mouth.

Corpulus was the one to take the job of smoothing things over. "Now I think of it… We were told to look out for some nobles from High Rock. That was over a week ago now though. What was it, Martins?"

"Martel." Adilia's father corrected him. "We took the long road."

"Ah yes, so you told me… Well, the Bracken-Thrones won't be able to see you tonight, they've got some trouble with a lost boy, but I'm afraid I don't have any rooms…" The pouch of gold that was placed on the table was larger than soldiers' yearly salaries. "Of course the largest room we have should suffice." Corpulus laughed nervously and pocketed the pouch before anyone could get a good look at it. Lord Martel leant back off the bar in satisfaction, allowing Corpulus to see the young woman behind him for the first time. "Oh, look!" He cried apologetically. "All our jabbering and I'm getting a queue–"

"Adilia, I told to go upstairs with your mother!" Lord Martel barked and behind his back Corpulus rolled his eyes at the drama of nobles.

"Will you be needing anything?" Corpulus smiled, interrupting the argument he was so used to seeing unfold with his own children.

"No. Thank you." Lord Martel replied curtly. With a sigh he guided his daughter to the stairs at the other end of the inn with a hand on her back.

"Good night sir!" Corpulus called after them and decided it was his turn to slump against the bar.

"Bracken-Thrones," The sober soldier snorted derisively. "He'll be lucky to get an audience in a month. They've got us combing the city for this kid. How are we supposed to find anyone with only 'a green tooth necklace' as a description?! Do we get royal edicts to look down people's necks next?!"

Adilia was so startled she stumbled over her own feet and would have fallen if her father hadn't caught her. The pendant went flying out of her robes, thankfully nobody seemed to notice but it still made her heart skip a few beats.

"I wouldn't mind that." One of the soldier's inebriated companions chortled.

"I'll be needing your muscle tonight, boys." Corpulus informed them gravely. "I just gave them Borrinjar the Bull's room."

Father and daughter went to their rooms with the echoes of the soldiers' guffaws following them.


	2. Chapter 2: Kale

The soldier had been right. Braden went out and returned with the news each day, the Bracken-Thrones would not see them. The "one night" in the inn turned out to be many, for without the acknowledgement of the Bracken-Thrones their claim to the guest rooms of Castle Dour didn't exist.

Their father's mood became more foul with each rejection, as did their mother's, but at least she spent as much time away from the inn as possible. Rona haunted the market whereas Charlize fooled around the guards' and bards' courtyards whenever she could slip away from her mother in the Blue Palace. When Braden wasn't pulling every string in Solitude with Lord Martel he was purchasing groceries with Rona. Adilia was left to somehow fill her days alone. At least she thought she was.

The boy she'd seen helping the innkeeper drank and laughed with the patrons every evening, then appeared just as cheery and bright eyed sitting next to the fire in the morning. He hadn't given her one glance but on the second day of her bored traipse through the inn his mischievous grin caught her eye.

"Hey, lady!" He called from his adopted seat in the corner in a rapid and lilting accent she didn't recognise. Some parts she did but it was far coarser than her own. "You ever been to Solitude before?"

She paused and slowly turned to him on her heel. "Of course." She replied uncertainly, not sure what he was trying to insinuate.

"Nah you haven't." He replied and got to his feet in one swift motion, hands behind his back. "You've been to stately manors and emissaries and courts, all with servants running about to keep you happy until you return to your own." He listed them all with a boredom that was reflected in his slow steps, then he stopped in front of her and the mischief returned. "I can show you another side of Solitude."

Adilia backed away from him instinctively. He wasn't the cleanest of boys she'd come across. "So you can hold me hostage in your band of little orphans in the woods?" She asked, only half joking.

The boy's top lip curled up in confusion. "What? First, I'm no little kiddie, and second, I was going to show you where to get the best honey nut treats. You want to know how the rest of the world lives don't you? I saw you trying to hide in the shadows when you came in that night, you would have gone upstairs if you weren't the slightest bit curious."

She pursed her mouth as she considered it. Her answer was to cross her arms at him and raise an eyebrow. "How old?" She demanded suspiciously.

The boy folded his arms in return and replied with just as much force. "Fifteen. And yourself?"

Adilia was so taken aback at the direct breach of courtesy that she grinned. "Twenty-two." She responded obstinately but without her former hostility, she wouldn't deny that the casual revelation of the personal information felt liberating. At home she would be treated as though she exposed her undergarments if she'd said it aloud.

"Good. Well now we've got that little factoid over can we go? Treats are awaiting!" He exclaimed quickly as he rushed for the doors.

"I don't recall saying yes." She reminded him skeptically. Curiosity drew her to the doors anyway.

"Who says no to honey nut treats?!" He asked bewilderedly, all the while glancing nervously over her shoulder. "Can we hurry it up please? Or do your folk only know how to stride?"

"They know how to kick your shins in." She mumbled as she went through the door he held open.

A mix of pleasant surprise and amusement crossed his face, that turned to fear when he looked back through the door again. He slammed it behind them and jogged down the steps. "Alright alright I lied, I needed an escape and I used you. I've got this… Rivalry with Corpulus's son, Sorex. I don't know if it's because I'm ginger or what, but the kid hates me."

"Maybe it's because you take away his father's attention from him?" Adilia asked.

"Oh yeah, yeah that might be it…" The boy pondered.

"I had an older brother once." She admitted, then a bottle smashed against the inside of the door they'd just run out of and they both flinched.

"Might be because I stole his honey nut treat." He said and whipped out a honey-stained stick from his tunic. "Can we run?" He asked when they heard the roar of a little boy come from inside the inn.

He took off towards the market without waiting for a response. He didn't need one. The first honey nut treat they ran past was swiped off the stall before the baker knew they were there. "Here you go." He said as he ran backwards in order to pass it to Adilia. "Kale keeps his promises. I'm Kale by the way, and yes I was named after the cabbage." He sighed as he span into the tower that spiralled down to the docks and went up the stairs instead.

"Why would your parents name you after a plant?" Adilia panted as she tried to keep up and lick dripping honey at the same time.

"They didn't." Kale replied. "My…uh…family started calling me that. Apparently it was the only thing that I'd eat while I was recovering from being poisoned. I don't really remember it."

"Your 'family'?" She asked, picking up on the hesitant tone. "Are you part of a thieves guild?"

He laughed as they came to the top of the tower and paused at a small door in the alcove that looked out on the bridge to Castle Dour. "No, nothing like that."

"Then why did you steal the treat?" She asked while eating it.

It took him a while to answer. "Where I come from there isn't so much value on, uh, ownership. You take what you need. 'Sides, I'm getting out of this place. They won't miss one bit of food."

"If you're leaving then why are you still here?"

Kale stared at her wearily. "Because I haven't found a way to get out yet."

"Have you tried the front doors?" Adilia returned apathetically.

"They have guards!" He protested. Quickly he turned and opened a small door disguised as another piece of the stone wall.

"Scared of guards? I thought you said you weren't a thief."

"I'm not. You coming or not? They'll probably brick this over soon. It goes into the walls, nobody goes there anymore and you can spy on everyone through the cracks."

"You can get into the city walls but you can't find a way to escape?" She asked, even more skeptical than before.

He was too busy looking over his shoulder to respond. "You know it was probably a bad idea coming out here…" He made eye contact with a guard on the Castle Dour ramparts and paled. "So let's get on with it!" He then disappeared through the door and down the drop behind it. She barely had a chance to look bewildered before his head popped back up again. "I never caught your name." He pondered.

"Adilia Martel." She replied without the pomp and circumstance that would usually accompany an introduction.

"Well, Miss Martel who may or may not be known as lady, let's show you how the other half live." His proffered hand was taken in an instant.

* * *

Over the next few days that was exactly what he did. Though he never left the Winking Skeever again, Kale used his free time to show the tricks of the trade to the young woman he'd abruptly taken a shine to. Despite their attempts at subtlety her mother noted how nice it was of her to be spending time with the serving boy. She expected her daughter was heightening his low life experience through virtue and decorum, not the other way around.

Within a week she knew how to drink like the best of them without actually drinking.

On the seventh night she heard screams. Adilia lay incredibly still as her eyes opened and she found that what she was hearing wasn't a nightmare. Her body shot up with the terrified leap of her heart but she clung on to the window's frame to keep low. There was no use as the glass was so dirty and clouded that the only thing she could make out was quivering carried torches.

"You hear it too?" A petrified whisper came from the bed at the end of the room. Adilia looked over to find a ghostly Charlize wrapped in the sheets and looking half her age.

"Get up." Adilia told her sister, flinging the covers off her own bed. "We need to move."

"But why?" Charlize whined. "Whatever is happening it's out there, not–" Something thudded against the window so hard she shot up in time to catch the fur cloak Adilia threw her. "Never mind." She squeaked.

"Where are the others?" Adilia asked as she sat on Rona's empty bed to pull on the plimsolls she'd become fond of wearing in the warm inn. She was completely dressed by the time Charlize remembered how to fasten a cloak over her nightgown.

"I-I don't know…" She spluttered only to cut herself off with her own scream as the door slammed open.

"You two are up, good." Rona nodded after bursting in, rubbing the ear closest to Charlize's scream. She looked at Adilia's state of dress and smiled. "Not remembering the time Peter tried to burn down our barn are we?"

Adilia shrugged. "I see a lot of fire out there."

"You were more prepared than the guards that day." Rona smirked.

"Where were you?!" Charlize asked and struck the most obstinate pose one could in a nightgown.

Rona was doing everything she could to keep a sheepish look off her face, but she never was the most adept liar. "I went to get some water…" She said haltingly. Their father ran in before she could attempt to finish.

"All of you get yourselves outside, we're moving to the castle." Lord Martel said around the door frame. "Bandits have reached the gates. Half of them came from the docks and are moving towards the houses." He sounded puzzled at his own anecdote but Charlize gasped and rushed to his side in an instant.

The other two sisters followed her lead and hurried after their father. Once they got to the ground floor of the inn, however, it was chaos. In the rush for the door a flaming arrow had flown in and landed on the bar. Since nobody knew whether to stay inside or not to stay safe they ran around like a coup of headless chickens. Corpulus was trying to direct them all outside but he wasn't finding much success between the screams and trying to put out his bar. As well as stop the flames jumping onto the furs of everyone who ran past.

Braden was the first to make it through the throng. "Rona!" He panted as he avoided someone barrelling straight for him. "Your mother's outside, we don't have much time before she gets lost again." Rona grabbed his hand before the crowd could suck him back in and beckoned for her family to follow.

They all did, Charlize was clutching their father's cloak for dear life already, but as Adilia was about to join them in the dive through panicking patrons she was pulled in the other direction.

Momentum dragged her to fireplace before she could look back but when she did, her family had vanished. In despair she turned to the person who had grabbed her hand and found herself face-to-face with a head of ginger curls and enough freckles to keep demons busy.

"You can't go with them, if we're going to escape it's now or never." Kale told her as he charged at a window with a barstool.

She laughed at the absurdity of it. "And why not?!" Nobody took any notice of the breaking glass, if they even heard it over their own panic.

"Because you're wearing the pendant they're looking for!" Came the muffled cry as he leant through the window to check for where the glass has fallen. The time it took for him to wriggle through was time enough for Adilia to take it in.

"But how do you know… You're the boy they've been looking for, aren't you?" She asked and hid the pendant more firmly in the collar of her dress.

He looked back through the window from the other side and held out his hands for her. "Look, you can't go out the front door. They'll see you–"

"And the inn is about to burst into flames." She finished and took a deep breath before diving through the window. She was lucky her dress coat was so thick because she could swear she felt some snags of glass that would have gotten through to her skin otherwise.

Kale grinned as he safely pulled her through and took her hand to guide her through the very narrow alley behind the Winking Skeever. "If we wait for the right moment we can make it to the tower next to the execution block. It's a risk but it'll take us to the city walls."

They shuffled through the coarse stone alley so quickly that Adilia was sure she'd just said goodbye to two layers of skin. It was too quick. Rather than stopping at the end of it, the woman ran into the boy and they both stumbled out into the street. Straight into the path of a guard.

"Hey!" He scowled at them.

Kale cowed and grinned nervously but Adilia stood tall and straightened her dress, drawing attention to its finery. The guard looked her up and down and adopted a more civil tone. "Ma'am, you and your son need to get to Castle Dour."

Adilia could only nod as her 'son' crept around to the deserted execution grounds and picked up a rock the size of his head. The silence allowed the guard to look at her more closely, and he focused on her neck. His eyes widened at the jade tooth hanging there.

"You…" He never got to finish as he crumpled to the floor in front of her. Kale dropped the rock he'd thumped him with and looked down at him in disgust.

"I have never been so offended." He rebuked the unconscious man.

"The tower is right behind you." Adilia pointed out and Kale remembered his surroundings.

"It'll only be so long until his pals realise he wasn't hit by a bandit. We'd better hurry this up." He told her as he took off at a run and bounded up the stairs. He would have taken them two at a time but his legs couldn't reach. Instead he went up them one at a time with what looked like a very rapid jog.

"Weren't we doing that already?" She asked in despair and tried to keep up. "Why are they looking for you anyway?"

"I don't know." Kale replied casually. "Maybe it's the freckles. Everybody hates on the freckles."

Adilia raised her eyebrow at the rebuttal but continued nonetheless. "Well what's waiting for you on the other side of these walls? You can't be trapped here for nothing."

He paused to get his bearings on the seemingly never-ending spiral stairs. "My people, hopefully."

He began again just as she caught up. "Your family? You said you weren't a thief, does this mean you're a bandit?" She asked.

"No!" He responded in an appalled tone. "I have no idea who these guys attacking the city are, but I wouldn't put it past my family to be involved. I told them to stay back but do they listen? No. Not this year, not the one before it, not–"

She smiled strangely at the boy who she still wasn't sure of if he was her kidnapper or accomplice. "You know, you don't act like any fifteen year olds I've met."

"Yeah, well where I come from we don't get much chance to do anything but grow up quick." He smiled as natural light began to appear around the next bend.

"Where do you come from?"

He grinned. "South." That was all he would say as they finally came to the final step and the top of Solitude's walls stretched before them.

Adilia fell silent. He didn't notice the disturbed look on her face until he spun back around to flatten against the wall next to the tower's opening. He hadn't expected guards to be making patrols on this part of the city when bandits were attacking the north.

"That brother I had…" She said while frowning at the ground.

"The one who died? Really sorry about that but this probably isn't the time to be reminiscing…" He said and frantically tried to peer around the wall. The guard appeared to be aiming at something.

"He didn't die." Adilia said and looked straight at him. "To our parents he did but that's not what happened. He joined a tribe south of Solitude. The Forsworn."

It didn't take long for Kale to realise why she'd brought it up. He also saw that she was eyeing up the guard too. "Ah." He said. Any energy he had sunk down in his eyes, making him look like a penned animal. "What's his name?"

"Sean." She replied, looking out at the walkway in front of them.

"I… never heard of him." Kale sighed as the only thing that could have saved him flew from his grasp.

"Why did you start being friendly to me?" Adilia asked. The question had been bothering her all along but he looked just as puzzled at it.

"When you tripped that night, I saw the pendant… They did give it to you, didn't they? That was the signal?"

"Who?" She looked so confused now that her eyebrows were knitting together. "A Khajiit trader gave me this at the gates, he told me it was worthless."

Kale laughed until it dissolved into a sigh. "Well, we're here now." He said and gestured to the opening. "You know what I am. You've got your chance. That guard can't be passed without him seeing me."

Adilia leaned to look out of the opening again, wondering what he meant. When she realised he thought she was going to sell him out she smirked wickedly. "I don't know… If we go along the ledge of this tower we could drop to the wall below it. We're out of Solitude then."

Kale's eyes widened to finally make him look like the child he was. He leant out of the opening too and regarded the ledge with a nervous grin. "Well it won't be the wisest thing I've ever done but…"

The woman he was close to outright jumping into the arms of smiled. "And what's that?"

"Giving my pendant to a Khajiit trader it seems." The cheeky grin returned and he leapt out of the tower to carefully step up onto the wall edge and flatten against the tower wall. Adilia joined him when he was close to the corner.

They watched the guard carefully but his attention had been drawn by bandits flooding into the city. The road was open and free before them. Going around the corner of the square tower was almost a deadly problem but both pushed their palm against the other's chest to steady them.

When it came to jumping down Kale landed like a lithe cat. It took a few moments of evaluating and reliving her life's best moments but Adilia did the same, mostly unharmed. Her landing was a little off to the side though so her shin scraped against the raised side of the walkway she landed on.

"I knew I should have worn boots." She grimaced and winced further when she pulled her hand away to see it was covered in blood.

"Come on, the mountains are right there!" Kale enthused as he helped her up, almost giving her a hug before he remembered he was supposed to be mature for his age. "My people will be waiting!"

He took off at an enthusiastic run without her. She had to amble slightly to keep up but didn't think she was doing half bad. He turned the corner before her but she was in the walled turret at the corner before he could leap up to the mountain rocks at the end of the walkway, framing her sight of him.

A perfect frame for seeing an arrow lodge itself deep in his throat.

Adilia's amble became a full-out run but he was gone before she could reach him. His eyes stared at the sky, a little puzzled at how his attempts to breathe resulted only in gurgles of blood. His legs twisted around as if dizzy rather than dying. Then he fell.

"No! No no no." She could only whisper as she staggered to a stop in front of him, now it was too late she had no idea what to do. Over at the rocks Kale had been aiming for three warriors were approaching. They all wore the strange copper coloured fur armour she'd noted on her journey to Solitude; Forsworn. Not one part of their faces foretold anything but her death. Especially in the cold steel eyes of their leader. Muscles almost the width of his head flexed as he made his way down the rocks. When he saw Kale he was shocked only for a moment before he glowered at her with pure hatred, his eyes framed by feral muddy brown face paint that crossed from his ear lobes to meet at his forehead in a point.

In vain she turned to the arrow's source, hoping to get at least a glimpse of the archer who might now save her from the Forsworn he targeted. Instead she found the killer was simply staring right back down at her.

He smirked, a sickening out-of-place expression that made his stiff black moustache twitch. He was about thirty and his fine quilted coat was a deep blue. "Your family can see us now." His voice carried down to her even though he didn't raise it from a smug, cool tone. He fondled the tip of his bow and left.

All she could do was stand there with one name going through her mind: Bracken-Throne.

Then a bone sword was drawn against her throat.


	3. Chapter 3: An Unlikely Asset

A voice growled stiffly in Adilia's ear. "Why did you kill him!?"

She didn't reply at first, she couldn't. Shock had rendered her unable to do anything but gape. "I haven't killed anybody!" Adilia protested when the thick arm around her midriff held her tighter. She would have struggled but the individual teeth on his sword had her pushing her head back into this stranger's shoulder just to stay alive.

"You led him to his death!" He shouted back.

She tried to wriggle in protest but the points of the sword scraped her neck so harshly her eyes almost rolled back in fear. "We were escaping, to find you!"

The man holding her growled. The rumble of it against her body scared her more than the sound.

"You have blood on your hand." He informed her, sounding like he was seconds away from spreading that blood to her throat.

"Woah there, chief." Said a new man who walked in front of them to inspect Kale's body. Another joined him, a woman. "That's her own blood." He said calmly and gestured to her bleeding ankle.

The sword held across her neck lessened its pressure somewhat but the grip crushing her stomach did not. The movement made it catch against the necklace around her neck, swinging the tooth pendant out into the light.

"Where did you get this?!" Her captor demanded, the sword regaining its choke hold against her neck.

"A Khajiit gave it to me a week ago. Kale knew about it – he trusted me!" She stammered through the haze of denial and alarms that were going off in her mind.

All the Forsworn looked at her with wide eyes.

"Kale knew her?!" The woman exclaimed dubiously.

"He wouldn't have let it go to anyone he didn't." Said the man.

The one holding her captive decided to talk with more civility, but even that sounded hostile. "This was Kale's pendant. He'd give it to traders to guarantee them safe passage. So how is it around your neck?"

"It was an accident! It was given to me, I didn't know it was supposed to mean anything." Adilia stated again, trying to return all the dignity she could to her voice while four huge teeth were pointed at it.

"This is why I didn't want to trade with those cats!" The chief groaned.

"What's your name?" Asked the man crouched next to Kale's body.

The chief frowned. "Herger, this is not the time to–"

"Adilia Martel." She replied.

Herger snorted. "Sounds like a noble."

"That's because I am!" She shot back impertinently.

He nodded at her while looking at the man who held her. "There you go then. She's a pansy, do you really think she could have shoved an arrow through a neck so hard it came out the other side? You're not thinking straight. We saw what happened, Jorran."

"Doesn't mean she wasn't involved. They could have been in league, getting a pretty woman to gain Kale's trust." Said Jorran, refusing to let his captive go.

Herger replied before Adilia could, but in his late friend's defense rather than hers. "Do you really think Kale would have fallen for that? Give the boy some credit, he was smarter than all of us. You know he didn't go for the ladies either."

The woman groaned at them from where she stared at the spot Kale's killer had been in. "You're both delaying. Tie up the girl and we go for Bracken-Throne. Simple."

"It's too late, Karryn." Jorran sighed. "The bandits have caused chaos in there. The trail was lost the moment he left and the rain removes his scent. Solitude will be on guard for weeks."

Adilia looked between them all with eyes as rapid as her heart. For a moment she'd been forgotten and the sword had slackened from her neck again. Now she could think properly. "I know the man you're looking for!" She burst out to them, drawing back the focus of the warriors. "The one with the ghoulish moustache," Herger touched his own moustache self-consciously, "his name is Peter. My family is trying to make a deal with his so we'll be out of debt. I can get you close to him."

Karryn walked up to her with arms folded. "Trying to save your own neck are we?"

"I was never in league with him, we haven't met since we were children!" Adilia scowled. "I only knew him for a few days but Kale was a friend. I can't kill Peter, but you can." She said and just like that, Jorran let her go. Adilia swiftly staggered away from him. "Well that was quick…" She said warily and rubbed her sore neck.

"Are you insane?!" Karryn hissed at him.

"She's not going anywhere." Herger reasoned and pointed at the ankle the Breton staggered on again. "We can shoot her faster than a sitting duck."

Jorran ignored them both and regarded the woman in front of him. "You do know what you're putting yourself in the middle of? The Bracken-Thrones want only me and my people. They kidnapped Kale in order to bring me here."

"If you knew that then why did you come?" She asked in bewilderment.

"My people were hit hard when the Nord shouted Markarth from us. We have been hunted down for years, there is no distance I won't go to return one of my tribesmen." He paused and looked back at Kale. Red blood now matted the bright ginger of his curls. "And he is my brother."

All of Adilia's fear and adrenaline dived into the pit of her stomach as she was suddenly filled with sorrow and pity for this fearsome warrior in front of her. She opened her mouth to try to voice it but he cut her off before she could.

"The Bracken-Thrones have killed my blood." His mouth formed strangely around the name like he was eating a particularly nasty new food. "If they find out that you spy for us, you are dead."

When Adilia held her hand out in front of her it had turned so pale it was near white, but that could have been the blood loss. "I know." She replied and matched his steady gaze.

The chieftain's face twitched. If she didn't have the memory of his blade fresh in her mind she would have thought he almost smiled. No, sneered.

"Then return to your city. Herger will find you when you have recovered. Until this is done I will follow you whenever you leave. The Bracken-Thrones will not touch you while I am there."

Adilia frowned at him. "A moment ago you were about to slit my throat, now you're offering to protect me?"

Jorran shook his head. "No. You have no choice in this. I protect my assets."

She didn't try to pretend she wasn't disturbed by that. "But what exactly do you want me to do? I don't know if you noticed when I jumped from the tower but I'm no lithe assassin–"

"Everything." Jorran replied. "Watch them and tell us all you see. Herger will find you. Return to your family, Adilia Martel."

Kale's body was lifted by Herger as gently as possible but that didn't stop the dripping stream of blood falling from his neck. Herger sorrowfully stemmed it with his fur bracer.

"Wait!" Adilia called out as they began to leave. Jorran turned around wearily and was surprised to find a deep green tooth pendant hanging before his face. "This doesn't belong to anyone but his next of kin."

Jorran regarded it with the torture of a hundred memories flashing before his eyes, then he stepped back. "Keep it. If what you say is true then he would have wanted you to have it. If not… The guilt it brings will pain you more than I ever could."

The Forsworn then took off at a run over the steep mountainside and disappeared into the trees. Adilia stared after them until her ankle stung her back into reality. She lifted it with a wince and looked around. The only way down was a shaky wooden set of stairs in the small corner tower. With several groans she limped over and tried to avoid the many splinters, which in turn led to even more splinters. She cursed them with every step.

Nobody had noticed the tawny brown eyes of a little Forsworn girl watching them from a tower who cried in silence.

True to Peter Bracken-Throne's word, a meeting was arranged with the two families days after the attack and they were moved into Castle Dour immediately. However, of Chief Jorran she heard nothing. No matter how many times she left the city he did not appear to guard her like he'd promised. Her patience grew thin and so Castle Dour's halls echoed with her footsteps as she ran down its many stone steps. The cut on her ankle had healed but she made a conscious effort to wear boots from now on.

She clattered into the castle's parlour and strode to the side like a crab when she passed a stressed Braden. "If you see the others can you tell them I've gone for a ride?" She asked.

He was on the verge of giving up trying to count their gold inventory but did so for good when her unexpected entrance made him knock over the towers of coins he'd made. There wasn't much to knock over. "And where will you be?" He asked her before she could go through the doors.

"Dragon Bridge." Was the response he got.

He frowned down at the collapsed gold like they'd give him an answer. "Why in Tamriel would you want to go…" The door was swinging shut before he could finish.

* * *

The skies were clear for once and allowed Adilia to see the extent of the 'damage' Solitude's citizens had been complaining about so badly. The attack from the bandits hadn't done much harm other than put the Winking Skeever out of business for a few days and brought down a few flimsy stalls.

"Don't you think the bandits could have come up with some other distraction to smuggle goods under?" One of the stall-owners grumbled the explanation the Solitude guards had been giving out. "The Four Shields' ale is so dry compared to the Skeever!"

She grinned, there was the source of their complaints. It was also the reason for the streets being so deserted. It was only the late hours of the morning and yet a stream of people joined her journey past the Winking Skeever. Those that didn't stay there to help fix it in a community effort to get their booze back carried on with Adilia down towards the next port of call, The Four Shields Tavern of Dragon Bridge.

At the farm she was the one who diverted from their dogged path. The stables only housed a few horses at a time but she was relieved to find hers had been given priority. Or more likely he had refused to leave his stall once he was put there.

"Hey, Nipper." Adilia greeted the half-asleep horse and bumped her head against his deep brown nose fondly. Nipper idly chewed his mouth as she petted him but upon realising that he was doing it on nothing but air, he went for her hair.

"Oh no, you're not getting away with that today." She pulled away and moved where he couldn't reach; his back. Nipper harrumphed but obediently plodded forwards anyway.

The farm hands went from miserably ploughing away at their potato patch to staring at the lady and her horse with slackened jaws. "When I tried to do that he bit me!" Exclaimed a teenage boy who was too tall for his clothes and too thin for them at the same time.

His younger sister hit him. "That's because you stink!" She cried. Their father groaned and pushed them into the hay bales to stop their bickering. It only muffled them.

When her horse had woken up properly she soon overtook the party of people heading for the tavern. She didn't let Nipper go beyond anything faster than a steady trot but still she didn't see any sign of a Forsworn warrior in the trees or mountainsides around her. She wasn't sure if that made her relieved or not.

At The Four Shields she dismounted Nipper on the grass next to the sign. Luckily he was far too lazy to consider moving from any position she left him in. He found grass rather than air to chew this time and she left him to it. She was about to go inside the tavern when a flicker of coppery fur disappeared around the corner of the building. She scanned the area for any overly curious citizens but there was nobody other than a boy skipping up the road. Nobody outdoors at least, as the noises coming from the tavern could only be described as a din. Following the fur she'd seen led to an empty fire pit on a small piece of land. The edge of it was framed by stones before it dipped to the height of the bottom of the hill Dragon Bridge sat on. On the other side of the fire pit was the wall of the tavern. Leaning against that wall was a grinning Herger tipping a tankard at her. All he'd done to disguise himself was to throw a robe over his Forsworn armour. Even the skulls on his belt hadn't been removed and made for some very strange bumps.

"When your chief told me you were going to find me…" Adilia said.

"Yeah well I wasn't going to sneak into Skyrim's biggest city was I? Even when I'm naked, I practically scream 'Forsworn!' You made it down here eventually." He whined.

"I…" She shook her head and decided not to pursue the subject. "So, you're supposed to tell me what I have to do. Why couldn't he have done that himself?"

He leaned back and used the tankard to gesture. "Ah, well the thing about Jorran is he isn't the most vocal of types… Why don't you ask him yourself? He's right behind you."

Adilia was so startled she span on her injured ankle and winced down to it, just in time to be face-to-face with the blade that had almost ended her life a week ago. She backed up towards Herger rather than stay this close to Jorran's crossed arms.

"Why are you both out in the open?" The chieftain asked, making Adilia cast a skeptical look at his primitive armour. "There's no one around. I scouted the area, as I have been doing for the past week." He replied to her unvoiced questions. "And I hope this will not take long."

"But I have not seen you!" She said.

"And neither did your enemies." He sighed at the shift in her expression. "You have none yet, but that will change if they begin to suspect you. Why are you here?"

"My father is meeting with them in three days. What do you want me to do?"

Jorran frowned, considering. Herger just shrugged and downed his ale. "Nothing yet. We are not ready. Find out what they want with your family."

"And then?"

"Then Herger will…" Jorran paused as Herger belched across them and amended his own words with a defeated look. "Then I will find you."

"Alright…" Adilia drew the word out as she turned around. "But what if–"

He had gone.

"It happens." Herger patted her on the back and discarded his empty tankard.

"Don't drop the tankard." She muttered to him distractedly as her attention was drawn by a scuffle from the front of the tavern.

He looked down at the fallen mug in bafflement before joining her to stick his nose around the corner. He had his hand at the ready to draw his sword but he was the first to giggle and pull away from what they saw. Nipper had apparently found Jorran's feather shoulder pauldron appetising as he tried to slink past and now refused to relinquish his bite on it.

"Does your beast never unhinge?" He asked gingerly as trying to poke Nipper's mouth to make him let go didn't work.

Adilia simpered and walked over to her horse, perfectly aware of how uncomfortable he was at being caught out trying to disappear. "If you really have been following me like you say then you'll know his name is Nipper." She tickled the apathetic animal under his muzzle and he threw his head up in the air with a nicker of glee. Jorran's feathers were released, though they now fell limp and frayed out in the few places they weren't laden with slobber.

"Thank you." Jorran said stiffly. Adilia wasn't sure if the lack of reaction to the sodden feathers slapping against his bare shoulder made it funnier or not, but Herger's coughs behind the tavern turned into unrepressed snorts and she smiled guiltily into Nipper's mane.

He repeatedly opened his mouth as if to say more but found he didn't know what else to say. Neither did she and the apprehensive pause between them became as tense as a bowstring. Eventually he ended it with a curt nod and headed for the Karth River path to the Reach behind Dragon Bridge's mill. This time he was in full view and she watched him leave from the nook of Nipper's neck as the horse planted his head on hers.

"Don't judge him too harshly for it." Herger told her as he sidled up to the tavern bannister behind her. "We just buried Kale. Not that he's a good talker normally, but…" He stopped talking when he saw her face fall at the name. "Yeah." He sighed deeply. "You'll be fine. There won't be a skeever that can sneak up on you while he has your back, forget assassins."

Her eyebrows flashed up as she stared sheepishly at the ground. She chose not to state the obvious of hoping so and instead swung up onto Nipper. "Goodbye, Herger."

His eyes shone at the unexpected recollection of his name and he gave her a little wave as she trotted back to Solitude. He went to take a sip from his tankard but was disappointed to be reminded he'd thrown it away. It didn't last long as his cupped hand had a new, full drink placed in it.

"Hey." His new friend grunted and leant effortlessly against the steps, even in his overly shiny armour. Herger smiled at him tentatively and raised the drink, not knowing what else to do. The tanned man with the accent of a seasoned sailor from foreign lands gestured towards his strangely bumpy belt and the short fur tunic that was showing beneath it. "Uh, nice armour." He said, his eyes lingering on the Forsworn's exposed knee. Herger's eyes flickered around wildly until he was almost certain he saw the man wink. Terror grasped him but the golden ale was swirling so temptingly in the tankard before him. He shoved his face in it so only his round eyes looked at a fixed point firmly away from the smirking man. So this was why his village's wisewoman had told him not to go to any of Solitude's inns. He tried to inch away as subtly as he could. Far too fancy.

* * *

Over the next few days, Adilia would begin to notice signs on the daily rides her family were becoming accustomed to her taking. She never saw him directly but now she was looking, indications of Jorran being there were more evident. A momentary view of fur in a region where there are no sabrecats, a shrub that wasn't flattened before, the snapping of twigs and falling of a rock where there are no animals… In hindsight they were most likely intentional for her reassurance, but she liked to think that she sometimes caught him off guard. Like the time where she abruptly turned Nipper into a side path and made him spin on his hind quarters. Jorran was caught right in the centre of the road in his rush to get her in his sights again. He retreated back into the foliage when he realised what she'd done, but not without an amused smirk.

"How's the weather back there?" She'd sometimes call into the trees behind her. She never received a reply but for the scantily clad warrior's sake she never went up into the frozen white mountains.

Despite the lack of communication she found his presence to be a comfort, regardless of if it was his intention. If only it came close to preparing her for what awaited her in Solitude's strongest fortress on the third day.


	4. Chapter 4: Prince of the Puddles

The sky was fading from orange to purple, clouds swirled in the mix and provided highlights like a pastel easel that had been upturned. She'd stayed out too long this time. All of the shop doors had been shut and locked already. From the grim looks the Castle Dour guards gave her she fully expected Braden to be waiting in the foyer with an abridged version of her mother's rant prepared. When she first saw her mother sprawled over the couch she thought that Lady Othella had come to deliver it herself for once, but then she saw her father pacing and Braden chewing his lip over at the counter, now void of the coins he'd been counting a few days ago.

"Mi'lady there is nowhere to go, they took everything." The manservant uttered, his voice sounding empty.

"But why?!" She wailed. Adilia's entrance had gone unnoticed and she stayed in the shadows.

Braden gulped and waited to see if his employer would speak before he did. "It's my understanding that they wanted some kind of guarantee until our side of the fee–"

"We can never pay them." Lord Martel snapped. "And they know it." He sighed.

Othella wailed again. "Are we worth nothing?" She asked the heavens. It wasn't a question she was expecting an answer to.

"No." Her husband replied. "Not us…" He looked pointedly at everyone who was in the room, then in the direction of everyone who wasn't.

If Othella had gone pale at his first response, she might have well have been a ghost by then. "But… you can't… They are our children!"

Lord Martel dug his hands into his flawlessly neat locks. "I know!… I don't know what they want from us." He turned back to pacing before he pulled his hair out. "Knowing them they'll take their time telling us."

"Then… Why are we still here? We must be worth something if–"

"You think we are guests, Othella?" He laughed bitterly. "Did you not hear Braden? We have no funds to go anywhere. We are prisoners in their gilded cage, being ripened for the picking of whatever the bastards want."

She gasped and shakily covered her mouth in horror. "But what of the house? Surely our estates can cover whatever they want." He only shook his head and she raised her voice in desperation. "But, land! The mines! Crops… Beautiful views?"

"My dear…" Lord Martel began gently. "The house only just covers the debts your father left us. We would still be left with nothing. The old man did love his battles." He laughed bitterly and Othella began to sob.

"Then we escape! Before they ensnare us! Take the horses and run!" She exclaimed very gravely and all of the others present looked at her in concern for her sanity.

"And where would we go, Othella?" Her husband asked and carefully walked over to take her hands in his. "I'm afraid you would not fit well to life on the road, my fine lady." He said as he stroked a dishevelled lock of hair from her tearful face and rose to pace again. "They took the horses too. Do not be mistaken, the Bracken-Thrones will treat us well as we have what they want. We may continue our lives but never forget, it is an illusion. No matter how fine they are, as of today we have only the clothes on our backs."

With strong faces they then left the room in private conversation. Braden was forgotten as usual but while she was so observed in her parents' words, Adilia hadn't noticed he was staring right at her.

"They're upstairs." Was the only thing he said to her. He had been on their estate since he was a child, their history went back too far for anything more than a look to convey understanding of the sorrow they felt.

As soon as she entered the bedroom they shared, Charlize shot into Adilia's arms in a blubbering mess. Rona stood in the corner with her arms wrapped around herself.

"You know then?" Adilia asked as she patted her little sister. Rona nodded, looking like she was trying not to throw up.

"Did they take yours too?" Charlize asked and looked up with eyes so shiny they could have been glass. "Did they take Nipper?"

"No." Adilia told her and she pulled away with a sniffle.

"That's something then." Charlize said. "He can carry three of us, right? Skyrim's horses are so fat–"

"We're not leaving, Charlize." Adilia chided. The youngest sibling looked confused while the eldest looked at Adilia with the familiar dread of an eldest child. "This will end and it will not be with them telling us how to do it." She then stormed towards the door.

"Lia…" Rona began to warn her but closed her mouth when Adilia looked back with the angry determination of a mule. "Be careful."

"Peter Bracken-Throne set fire to our home once, he isn't going to do it again." Were her last words as she slammed the door behind her.

"So it was that Peter!" Charlize realised and shuddered several seconds later at the memory of him.

Rona didn't register a word after the middle sister had left. "Excuse me." She said and dived for the door as quickly as she could without running, the back of her hand over her mouth.

Charlize watched her go in the opposite direction Adilia had and shrugged as the door swung shut. A bed with a blanket and a book awaited her and she dropped down onto it gladly. "At least I'll always have you, Prince of the Puddles." She grinned over the top of her book at a hand-sewn stuffed grey frog. Once it had been made of the finest velvet but it was so worn with use and age that it was now a matted, fuzzy ball of memories. "Oh and you, Prince Pierre." She grinned and looked back down to her book, licking the tip of her finger to eagerly turn the next page.

* * *

Meanwhile in the parlour, Adilia had such a face of thunder that Braden dared not question her as she strode out into the evening. She was going to find the best vantage point to watch the Bracken-Thrones from in Solitude.

A thunderstorm raged the next time she left the city. A good thing too because she'd been nervous about taking Nipper out of the stables while he was still recognisable. In this downpour, a Breton could appear to be a hulking Redguard warrior if they were more than an arm's length away from you. At least there was the fact Nipper would refuse to be moved even if she was recognized.

She smiled as she led him out and flung her long grey cloak across his back as she mounted him. The thought of Peter Bracken-Throne being hit into the roof of the stables as Nipper bucked was amusing.

"Yeah." She patted him as he looked around them in every direction and sneezed. "We're going to find the man with the feathers again."

They made it to the mountain crossroads before Adilia stopped and began to consider turning back. Her horse shivered and so did she. In this downpour there was no scent, with her hood up she was unrecognisable but in all honesty she would have been without it, too, as she no longer wore the bright coats of a noble. They'd sold most of their outfits in order to pay for their food and she'd taken to wearing the practical, if patched, dresses of the working folk. Especially as over a week had passed, there was absolutely no reason for Jorran to find her. Yet she turned and there he was, stoic as ever even though the rain made the muddy facepaint run down his face like he'd had a face-to-face meeting with a puddle.

She was trying to think of the most suitable greeting when he began to move towards them. "Give me the reins." He said, his sopping fur armour sending water droplets everywhere as he held his hands out.

"Not even so much as a 'hello'?" She laughed uncomfortably but held out the reins for him regardless. Instead he planted his hands on Nipper's hind quarters and jumped up to sit behind her. As she blinked and tensed up at their sudden proximity, he got ahold of the reins with an arm across either side of her body.

"Talking at the crossroads is not a good idea. I know where we can." He sounded much clearer now he was right behind her ear. To her confusion, he urged Nipper up the road that led into the mountains.

"Hey, Madman!" She called over the roar of the rain when the cobbles of the road disappeared beneath the snow. "We're all sodden, are you trying to freeze us to death?" So close were they that she could feel even him begin to shiver.

Before they could reach the top, he briskly yanked Nipper to the left and rode into a clearing not clearly visible from the road. "Is your horse always this clumsy?" He muttered as the animal stumbled at the unfamiliar riding style. Before Adilia could respond she had to grab the pommel of the saddle as Nipper bucked, a move that affected Jorran more than her. He had to grab her waist in order to stay on the horse's slippery back. It could be considered as Nipper simply recovering from his trip but the snicker he let out suggested otherwise. Either way, Jorran dismounted before they had completely stopped at the entrance.

Adilia looked around before she gave her horse a smugly proud pat. There wasn't a trace of the deadly cold snow in all the grass but the pond in the centre only doubled the noise of the deafening downpour. "This is worse than the crossroads!" She exclaimed before he beckoned her under a canopy of half-fallen trees that leant against each other.

"And now we can't be heard." He pointed out and glanced towards the entrance again. Nipper was the only one there to stare back at him dourly as he chewed on thin air and got even more wet. "I've seen you come here before." Jorran sounded almost sheepish before he looked back at her with the steel eyes that were never any less frigid than Haarfingar's winds.

"If you're watching me all the time, who is taking care of your people?" She asked.

"I am not the only one who knows how to lead a tribe." He replied. She tittered nervously at how obvious it was and in the silence he tried to think of something to add. "I have somebody in my place until this is complete. The village is not safe while I am targeted. Kale proved that…" He coughed and rolled his shoulders. "Did you find out what they want from you?"

Now it was her turn to be closed off. "No. They're toying with us for now." She tried to release the wet sleeve that was plastered against her skin and leant against the tree trunk behind her. "But I discovered something else. They never leave Solitude, not even to go to the docks. Their routine is almost a ritual to them. When they eat is the only time they come together. It's impeccably guarded but it also never changes."

The thick black lines of his eyebrows came close to becoming his eyelashes. "This is useful to us but I never asked you to find out these things. What made you?"

A big gust of wind gave Adilia an excuse to rub her arms. "They threatened my family."

With increased alarm he was about to question her on it when Nipper spooked at the sudden gust and galloped into the space between them. He obstinately stood there and gnashed his teeth at Jorran until Adilia petted him.

"Rude." She scolded and scratched his ear, leaning back to try and stay dry. It didn't work. "I take it you aren't used to horses." She said to Jorran over the horse's ducked head.

Jorran's face was as still as stone as only his eyes moved around to squint at the innocent horse. "My people ride elk."

She blinked at him. "Elk?! But how do you even get them to go near you… No, don't tell me." She shuddered at the dark rituals she just imagined and fiddled with her mount's bridle. "I suppose the antlers have advantages, but my people ride carriages being ridden by people riding horses." She snorted bitterly. "We only rode here because the roads were too narrow for them. Mother was indignant about leaving her plumped cushions behind but the moment Nipper stamped on my father's foot I knew it was meant to be."

Jorran already had his mind on the next subject but even he knew it would be rude to change it when she'd put so much into it. "Why is your horse named that?" He asked the only thing he was remotely curious about while rubbing the bite Nipper gave him to return circulation to it.

"Haven't you figured it out by now?" She grinned and let Nipper go for his feathers again before pulling him away to be fondled.

"Ah." For one startling moment he laughed along with her but that ended as soon as he realised it. All traces of it vanished when his awareness returned to the world around them. "This storm won't last all day. You'd better return before it's wondered why you stayed out in it."

Adilia nodded but didn't trust her mouth to say anything, she wasn't expecting to feel so disappointed.

"Continue to watch the Bracken-Thrones. No man's armour is without a chink." He said as they walked back towards the cold snowy entrance. "Something will bring them out of the nest. We will wait until you find it."

"And when I do?" She asked.

She never found out what was going to follow the small smirk that twitched on his face.

Maybe it was another howl of wind disguising the sounds of their approach or maybe he didn't expect them to come out the same way. No matter what the reason, an armoured mercenary was caught in the road mid-sneak. For a suspended moment he and the mounted noble stared at each other, neither daring to blink. A quick glance down showed the trail of steel plated boot prints leading from him circled all around the entrance to the clearing. If he'd expected the weather to have hidden them by now, rain wasn't quite so forgiving as snow. Instead the footprints were only made clearer as the mounds of snow around them were melted by the warmer moisture.

One quick glance to the close copse of trees on his right showed his thoughts exactly. A horse could not possibly follow him through there, but the revelation was his undoing. He had never once looked to the left. The mercenary's throat was slit before he could tense up for a leap to the trees.

"So somebody _was_ following you." Jorran grunted as he sheathed the sword that had once almost done the same thing to Adilia's throat.

The clatter the armoured body should have made was muted to a thud by the snow it fell in and she had to gulp back as the white immediately began to dye red. "You knew about this?" She whispered with eyes as open and flared as Nipper's.

"I suspected it." Jorran corrected her coldly. "The snow proved it. No spy could resist listening into a closed clearing with only one way in." He then dipped down and plucked a piece of paper from within the mercenary's breastplate.

Panic was beginning to enter her voice but it was overridden by her concern in his tactics. "Why did you kill him? Now they will know for sure!"

"Accidents happen out in the wild, cutthroats are behind every corner. If he had lived he would have told the Bracken-Thrones you are in league with a Forsworn." He said, trying to examine the letter before the rain soaked it all.

Adilia struggled with Nipper's panting and pacing, making them go back and forth like a cart with its wheels stuck in the mud. "But how did you know he was a spy? I mean he could have been a hunter or–"

He held the paper up to her face, his finger placed over a blue illustration of a Nordic throne constructed from twigs. "I don't need to read to know their seal."

She snatched the sopping paper from him and tried to shield it beneath her cloak, despite her skilled posture Nipper's jittery movements nearly threw her off as both her hands were off the reins. She quickly grabbed his mane to steady herself, the paper ripped as it was still caught in her cloak but there were not many words in it to be seen. "I…"

"What does it say?" He asked.

"He was sent to watch me. Did you not see it already?" Her confusion was then put on hold as a change in the wind blew sleet straight into the unsettled Nipper's face. This time he reared up and the lack of friction between him and his rider made her slip back no matter how tightly she held.

Before he could do so again Jorran darted forward with no apprehension and a hand held out above the horse's head. Nipper snapped around to bite his fingers several times but gradually his aggression lessened. At first she thought it was the wind but as Nipper quieted she was sure Jorran was humming.

"I didn't expect them to be onto you this soon." He said almost apologetically when Nipper allowed him to rest his hand on the arch of his nose.

However, Adilia's attention was still on the previously panicking horse who had almost gone asleep beneath her in the space of a few seconds. "How did you do that?" She asked in a hushed voice so as not to disturb it.

"My people don't get elk to come near us simply because of our smell." He reminded her with a small smile. She would have laughed if she wasn't so shocked at the revelation of humour. His expression returned to austere sincerity in an instant as he looked up at her through the downpour. "I cannot protect you in the city but they care too much about the status of their name to do anything there. Remember, they have nothing to suspect you of yet."

"Not yet." She muttered, the bloody corpse on the ground was beginning to disturb her more for the fact it was there in the first place rather than its demise.

"Whenever you leave they will not touch you, that I can swear." He said as he noted her glance to the dead mercenary. "And the storm is ending." He reminded her.

"Oh, um, yes." She said, still trying to take in the implications of what he just said. Nipper happily trotted along as soon as her heels touched his flanks.

Him returning her fleeting glances with wary looks was the extent of their communication in their journey down the hill to the crossroads. They stopped at the signpost. "I will make sure no others follow you to the gates."

Adilia nodded and looked down the separate paths they were about to take. Although the rain was thinning it was still coming down heavily and wouldn't stop for hours. She looked back at the man who'd just saved her life probably three times in one afternoon and had sworn to continue to do so. He stood there with water streaming off his fur and she was sure he shivered. To the teeming mass of muscle it was likely nothing but he had a long walk back to the Reach and she had less than a minute of a gallop to a warm castle. Her stomach somersaulted one more time before she unhooked the clasp of her cloak.

"Take this." She said and held it out with one hand. "I have others." She stated and shook it as he stood staring at it.

"But–" He said, regarding it. The outer layer was completely sodden but the weave prevented any water getting inside. It was not fur but it would be dry and warm with her body heat.

She sat as straight as possible in the saddle and took on her most dangerous tone of voice. "You would dare refuse a lady?" He had a momentary glance of her arching eyebrow before she threw the cloak at him and he had no choice but to catch it.

"Don't stop." He said softly as she galloped away before he could say anything. In the rain's curtain she vanished from sight in seconds but he stayed standing there for a few more moments. With an indecipherable twitch in his expression he fastened the cloak around his own neck and disappeared into the murk towards Dragon Bridge.

The signpost was left alone once more. Who knew the centuries of beginnings it had seen before it, or how many more.


	5. Chapter 5: Fairy Tales

The rain didn't stop in a few hours and it didn't in a few days either. Adilia pressed her forehead against the cold glass of her bedroom's window seat. She hadn't lied when she told Jorran she had other cloaks, but that was before she found out her family had sold them all when they ran out of bread. Her mother wouldn't let any of them leave on pain of death while the bad weather continued, so she was stuck puffing warm air onto the perfect stained windows she'd scowl at daily. They appeared to be so elegant and yet there was nothing behind them of any substance but cold. The family had come to only approaching the kitchen staff for logs to fuel the fires only when absolutely necessary. Fear of incurring further attention from the Bracken-Thrones had gone too far and yet she could do nothing about it. Not by herself.

When the condensation cleared she pressed up close and tried to see anything that moved on the rocks that towered over Solitude. The breath she held to prevent clouding the window up more so was beginning to run on fumes but then she was certain she saw a flicker of something. A pile of books clattered to the floor next to her before she could focus on it, making her jump and exhale all over the window. She wouldn't be making that much fog clear up any time soon.

Adilia turned to the clumsy owner of the books who'd interrupted her search for Forsworn. "I thought we were supposed to be holding back on spending, Charlie?" She sighed and knocked aside the old books that Charlize had pushed onto her lap.

"Just put them over there, Brady." The youngest lady directed and he blustered past to place a box of freshly bound leather books beside her bed. "Well I have to do something in this empty place don't I? It's all soldiers, servants and rain. No fun at all." She said to her sister.

"There's already a library you know." Adilia rolled her eyes.

"And that library doesn't have the tales of Prince Pierre." She replied with indignant satisfaction as she primly placed herself on her bed to pick up the closest copy in the box.

Adilia slumped back in the window seat and ran her fingers along the coppery tan wood of the shelves next to her. "I don't see why you get new books and yet I can't keep any of my cloaks." She shot back broodily.

"Well you could have kept one of your cloaks but you had to lose it in the woods, didn't you?" Charlize said and pursed her lips.

Braden picked up one of her discarded books and leant against the wall next to the door, crossing his long trouser-clad legs and trying not to get involved. His eyes were following the argument rather than the words on the pages though.

"Will you two stop bickering?" Rona groaned from the corner of the room where she was curled up in a chair, eyes closed.

"I just don't think Charlie realises we're poor." Adilia glowered. "How many loaves of bread could those books have bought us before the next five thousand gold the Bracken-Thrones demand? Or ten? Or fifty?"

Charlize replied without looking up from her book, pulling an infuriatingly snooty face. "Don't say that number, Rona will throw up again."

Rona's eyes flashed. "I'm fine." She growled

Braden abandoned all pretence of reading his book and looked at her in alarm but nobody got the chance to follow-up on it. They all simultaneously flinched as the doors of the foyer beyond their room banged open and a chorus of raised voices began to filter through the walls.

"Do we…" He began to ask until both Charlize and Adilia barged past him, equally fierce forces of nosiness and responsibility. The remaining two didn't need to exchange a glance before going after them, a situation that had been occurring since their childhood.

Their eagerness for first place resulted in Adilia and Charlize completely missing the eavesdropping-around-the-corner location they were quietly racing for. The former would argue that she had a much more valid reason but she scuffled for it despite her reasoning. Resulting in both of them skidding into clear view of the room at the bottom of the stairs and all its inhabitants. Not that any of them would have noticed, if not for a particularly bored participant on the edge of the discussion.

An unfamiliar face with ginger hair and one and a half eyebrows leered up at them. "Ah look, there are the crowning glories now!" He cried. "And Rona." He smiled as she came up behind them. "Beautiful as ever. Despite the rags."

Then a heavily built man turned around from speaking to their parents. He had a face they were all familiar with, at least, their imaginations were. "Such a pity you come just as we leave." Said Renald Bracken-Throne. He did not shout but his voice resonated so deeply that they all shuddered.

"But you've only just arrived! We haven't discussed anything!" Lord Martel stuttered.

Renald Bracken-Throne waved the noble aside like he was an irrelevant caretaker. "We will see your family again, Martel. Elijah." He summoned his son like a dog and left the family to the collapsing husk of their former lives.

Othella ran over to the document he'd left on a counter the second the doors closed. "Five hundred?" She gasped weakly. "But it was fifty last time! What does he want with this? Not even the High Rock palace would pay this much! For anything!" She threw it aside and flounced onto a sofa.

"Actually it was five hundred last time." Charlize noted as she slunk over and stuck her nose in it. "It hasn't changed, you must have missed a zero."

"That's enough from you." Her father chided and whipped it away before she could read any further.

"Five hundred thousand gold?" Rona repeated slowly in disbelief. "Father, this has gone too far." She said shakily. "You must go to the High King and…"

"And what?" Lord Martel snapped as he gripped the sofa his wife held her head in her hands on. "Torygg does not know us and even if he did speak to Renald, the Bracken-Thrones would never deal with us again and we would be left in poverty."

"But five hundred…" Othella whispered from behind her fingers.

"They must know we could not possibly pay this." Adilia said, cutting across their numb shock. "Not even if we were out of debt."

Lord Martel sighed. "He did give us another option. The one he really wants of course."

"Then go for that!" Charlize desperately exclaimed without once wondering what it was. Adilia and Rona watched his slow and troubled progression across the room with caution.

"Our family is an old one. The name and the lands that come with it demand immediate respect… It's nothing. Something to be discussed and negotiated before you worry your young heads with it." He gave them a small attempt at a smile but it barely creased his already wrinkled face. "We are Martels, we have a roof over our heads and warm beds. We'll continue as we were."

"And how are we supposed to do that?" Othella laughed bitterly. "Look at them. Look at our daughters. Elijah was right, they're in rags! Charlize could be a shopkeep!" They all began to pick at their clothes. Adilia at the blatant stitches on her slit green dress and Rona at the wide blue belt around her waist, likely made of spare fabric from the matron-like skirt. Charlize just looked confused, even though its hem was dirty her outfit was perfectly practical. "Look at me!" Othella said, the only one who refused to wear anything but the noble outfit she'd arrived in. "Can you even tell this filthy dusty thing was once a sapphire blue? Its fur has more holes than lace!"

"Dearest…" Lord Martel said as if one word wrong would push her over the edge. "The commoners' clothes may not be anything to look at but they are sturdy. You would be warmer if–"

"No." Othella sobbed and waved him away with a dainty hand before he could come any closer. "I can barely bring myself to look at you when you don them, my dear. To see what we've come to…"

Adilia was fuming to the extent she was about to blow but luckily her father saw it before she could.

"Your mother and I have some talking to do, children. It would be best if you returned to your rooms." He said and turned his back to them, pouring his concerns into the document he'd taken from Charlize.

Rona grabbed Adilia's arm and marched her out before she could begin to vehemently remind him they were no longer children. Charlize scuttled after them with confusion still lingering on her face. Braden had waited at the top of the stairs out of mind and out of sight. The two elder sisters blustered past quickly but with a nod to the worried Rona he stayed behind. When the youngest made her way up, deep in thought over her cream and salmon dress, he put a consolidating arm around her shoulder.

"Even princesses wear pinafores." He whispered to her with a smile. Charlize immediately beamed back at him. Any trace of concern had vanished by the time they reached the bedroom.

Adilia shook herself from her sister's grasp and stalked over to the furthest window. She braced herself against it and glared at the latticework as the cold it emanated soothed her face.

"Do I have to guard the doors now or are you done?" Rona asked with arms folded.

She didn't answer and instead stalked back to the middle of the room. "'Another option?'" She asked with ridicule as Braden and Charlize quietly came into the room to resume their former positions.

"So he said." Rona replied, trying to balance out Adilia's burst of emotion by giving off none.

"You know what that means." Adilia scoffed. "Peter the Pervert has had his eyes on us ever since–"

"Ever since when? When he set our barn on fire as a ten-year old child?" She didn't mock her sister but it was so ridiculous she didn't need to.

"…Yes." Her argument was lost but she meekly replied anyway.

"We don't know what it means as he hasn't told us." Rona lectured her gently. "Never immediately assume the worst, you don't want to be like mother."

Adilia scorned. "As if I would ever be like her!" She then sprawled on the bench between the room's bookshelves in the most unladylike posture possible, just to prove her point. Rona rolled her eyes and Braden snorted. She soon returned to a more normal position and Rona took to arranging a small pouch of ingredients on the bed aligned against the room's north wall.

Now that something of a calm had returned, Charlize spoke up from quietly scrutinising all of their outfits. "If we're poor, then why are you still wearing jewellery?" She asked Adilia innocently.

"I'm not…" Adilia replied but then she looked down at the diving neckline of her dress and saw the jade tooth hanging there. "This isn't… A merchant gave this to me when we first came here. It isn't worth anything."

"You're still wearing it though." Charlize said. "Three weeks later."

"Well, I like it. The green matches my eyes." Adilia covered it with her hand a little too defensively.

"A merchant?" Rona asked, sounding as skeptical as her raised eyebrow.

"Yes, the Khajiit at the gates." Adilia groaned and they let it go. Then she was drawn to the way Charlize got lost so quickly in the books she'd valued over bread. "Charlie, in all these books you read about princes and princesses, is that it?" She asked, missing definite movement on the mountainside her window looked out on.

"What do you mean?" The young reader looked up at her with her head cocked. "Sure, there are donkeys and fairies and other–"

Adilia stopped her before she could list every fairytale animal in existence. "I mean do they ever focus on anything else? Like the workers or the farmhands or… Like the bodyguards. What about the people whose life revolves around making sure their charge is safe? Surely there's some chance for… development there. More than with the prince they've never met."

Braden dropped the book he'd picked up again and was so flustered he took several moments to get a grip on it again. Charlize was alarmed until she saw it was a book she no longer cared about and she shrugged at Adilia.

"Well, no. They're dull. They never say anything…"

Adilia was considering this when Rona finally placed the book Braden was attempting to retrieve on a shelf, a little concerned by how long it was taking.

"I'd better go, before your parents blow another gasket at the finances." He excused himself. They all would have said goodbye but the man with messy stubble of a goatee was out of the door before they could look up.

After an exchange of clueless looks the sisters returned to their activities. At least, two of them did. Adilia looked at the window and immediately came away from it. The rain had stopped.


	6. Chapter 6: Speaking With a Savage

Haarfingar wasn't nearly as wet as the hold below it so Adilia was able to resume her daily rides for weeks on end. With regards to her little sister's words she tried to get Jorran to talk more. Her degree of success was subjective, the calls of questions about the state of the damp underbrush often got ignored, but one time she was certain that Jorran got so sick of it that the wet leaves that hit her face came from him.

Other questions came with more of a victory. As her tactics of waiting around tight corners and pulling Nipper in sudden 180 degree turns became incredibly noticeable to simple passers-by, he began to walk closer and clearly be in earshot.

"Wouldn't you prefer we swapped places for once?" She asked while taking an intentionally long and mountainous ride. On the third repetition he responded.

"I'm afraid a fine lady would find that the roots don't move out of her path before she falls into a ditch."

She was silently acknowledging his point before she recognised his tone. "O-ho," she grinned, "the savage knows sarcasm?"

In the brief moments his face became visible in the gaps between the trees she found he was smirking at her amusement. "It's used too much in my village."

"Who uses it?" She asked, heart leaping. The most enthusiastic user of sarcasm she knew was her brother.

"Kale." Jorran responded quietly and her heart sank in every way it could.

As if sensing her emotions Nipper slowed to a plod so all were hardly moving. "I'm so sorry about what happened to him, we've never spoken of it…"

"Do we need to?"

Neither said anything for a few moments. "I had a brother once." She volunteered out of the silence.

"I'm sorry." He meant it at her use of past tense, she knew, but it still made her giggle. Then the look he gave her only made her laugh further at the irony of the madman considering her a madwoman.

"He didn't die." She clarified and tried to return some sanity to her voice. "He left to join your people, four years ago. We didn't hear from him again."

"What's–"

"His name's Sean." She smiled sadly at the lack of recognition in his eyes. "Kale hadn't heard of him either. The Markarth Incident was around the time he left, I hear it was a big battle…"

"The Forsworn have many camps, I don't know all of them." Jorran asserted very firmly. "Your brother could be in any of them. Did you… get along?"

"Well, considering we once ganged up on our entire family, meaning half the Breton monarchy, at the biggest gathering to date and got them all drunk by replacing the punch and performed antics we planned for months in advance… Yes, we were close. My sister was closer in age but let's say she would never have agreed to putting cheese in the duke's undergarments so we could watch the dogs chase him all night." She coughed. "He was a nasty duke… And you?"

He went from an amused, if perplexed, smile to his usual pin-straight expression with those two words. "No. Kale is… was, fourteen years younger than me. I was the chieftain, he was the child trying to run through and entertain the entire Reach. We never had many chances to get to know each other. At least, I never created them."

Adilia brought Nipper to a halt and looked directly at him. His face was hidden by the bushes and by the sorrowful pitch of his voice, she knew why.

"You know," she began in the kindest voice she could muster, "this is probably the longest we've ever spoken."

With a near indistinguishable sigh hidden in a clearing of the throat he continued their journey onwards. "Speaking makes my presence obvious. Do you want to have a battle following you all the time?" When he didn't hear the clattering of Nipper's hooves he crossed into the centre of the road and folded his arms. "I can make him follow me without your permission, you know."

She laughed. "Please. You can hum this lazy-guts to sleep but not even a master of Illusion could force him to move." Nipper then snorted himself awake to prove her point. "Besides, have you seen anyone following me lately?" She asked and turned her horse away from the setting sun. "Talk next time." She smiled coyly and urged Nipper into a gallop towards Solitude.

Next time he did. It wasn't always much but he made an effort to be closer to her. Once even responding to her infuriating queries on the weather with: "I've seen the Old Gods piss worse."

Then one day she did not speak at all. She was only left to chewing her lip to the point of tears for so long. He was walking at their side the instant they were beyond the city's eyes. Silently he waited for her to speak. They'd taken to riding in the south of the hold where it was somewhat less frozen. Jorran balanced along the snowy rock ridge at her shoulder but when she didn't respond he made the first attempt at small talk in his life.

"The weather is…acceptable…today…"

It almost made her smile. "The Bracken-Thrones voiced their true intentions today." She said dolefully without raising her eyes from Nipper's mane.

He grabbed the horses's bridle and turned him into a grassy clearing as soon as the trees opened. Adilia dismounted and left him to eat in the lazy sunlight as she circled aimlessly before Jorran.

"What?" He demanded.

"They want us to marry into them. Apparently my father giving them the land isn't enough, and believe me, that was a desperate decision. They want our name and our blood too."

The corners of his mouth pulled down in combination with his eyebrows knitting as he watched her gracelessly take a seat on a log. "Can't you refuse?"

She looked up at him and smiled without warmth, how could such a fierce warrior be so naive? "And have them devour us over the debts our grandfather owed them? Oh yes!" She sighed at how harsh she sounded to her own ears and held her head in her hands. "Rona is the one most affected, being the heir. I don't know how she's taking this, I just came out here. I don't even know why… I'm sorry, you'll have no idea what I'm talking about."

"We have arranged marriages among my people, too. But it is a sacrifice of loyalty and strength between tribes, not a dance of who owns what."

"Oh? Next you'll be telling me you have assassins and spies."

He didn't respond.

"…I thought Sean left to get away from all of that." She muttered. "I never asked, why are the Bracken-Thrones going after you?"

"They may act like Nords but they are Bretons. Before that they were Reachmen. Once they sat on the Bracken Throne but they have long since dwindled into cowards. I do not know why they want to return to their Breton heritage but their Reachman roots taint it, especially when we took Markarth. Our leader is already targeted by many and I am his closest known ally. In short, they want to punish anyone they can. They think I am an easier target than Madanach." He snorted. "It seems they're using your family to try to regain their position in High Rock."

"That explains a lot." She sighed. "They're even bringing Skegge up, the eldest son. I've never met him but apparently he's a war hero. His mother was a Nord so he'll have more muscles than you – as hard as that is to imagine."

"I…" He wisely decided not to follow up on it but even though he gave her an aloof look of derision, he still tried to pull down the fur around his stomach. He tried to put off her chuckles with a cough. "So the family will all be together… Do you know when this will be?"

"We meet our proposed suitors this Sundas. Traditionally only the eldest will be united but… it depends on their mood." She seethed. "There are three of us and three of them after all."

"All of you?" His eyebrows shot up instead of down this time. "Why would your family agree to that?"

"The Bracken-Thrones have been holding us to ransom for over a month. If we don't comply we're left stranded in a province where nobody knows us and without a coin to contact those who do… Though in all honesty those people hate us so much thanks to our debts, they'd only laugh."

"Our king rose from the gutter himself, a lot of our people did. Not all Forsworn started out as Reachmen…" Jorran stated. It took a moment for her to realise what he was alluding to.

"Ah, no, your people… We couldn't…. No. You've never met my mother. Throwing my family out onto the streets would as good as kill us." She said it calmly without any trace of the exaggeration he looked for. "Selling all we had left only lasted so long, we went without food some days as my parents didn't want to attract attention by asking."

When he finally took it in he paced three times before throwing his sword. Adilia jumped when it thudded right next to her into the trunk. "My people have waited for weeks and you didn't tell me you suffered?! I noticed your change in clothing but I thought you were being sensible."

"Well, I was. I just didn't do it by choice." Seeing that her glib tone wasn't doing the situation any favours, she tried to take on the serious tone he usually sported. "My problems don't affect what happened to you or Kale, it doesn't matter."

She didn't expect him to look so taken aback before his narrow eyes sparked and he marched right up to her face. "But it affects you!"

It took several blinks and pants through flared nostrils for him to realise how close they were. When he leant back out of her personal space she found she hadn't moved an inch, even though the free space to do so was behind her. She hadn't wanted to.

Jorran huffed and yanked his sword out of the tree like an axe. "Find me when it begins. I will gather my people."

A feeling of panic began to spread in Adilia's stomach as the situation was going out of control and she had no idea how to stop him. Then by watching his retreating back she found the path he walked towards seemed familiar.

"Wait." She spoke out and span around to look at the clearing behind them. In the distance some heads bobbed behind a ditch in the ground. "Isn't this where I first saw you?"

Jorran wandered over to follow her line of sight and exhibited a flicker of a smile. "You remember that?"

"Well it's hard not to. You were about to shoot me." She sniffed.

"I was aiming for the Thalmor." He grumbled. "Nipper looked a lot like his mount." He was then barreled over by the aforementioned horse charging into him. "Is your horse enchanted to understand speech?!" He yelped in an unusually high pitch as he tried to get off the ground. Adilia giggled but then they discovered Nipper had planted a hoof on the skirt of Jorran's fur tunic and she outright laughed.

"No, but he doesn't like mumbling." She explained as she hefted herself into Nipper's side and tried to free the Forsworn. "You mumble a lot."

"I do not." Jorran mumbled as Nipper finally moved off him and he got to his feet. Adilia only smiled with lips pressed tightly together.

"Bandits control the ruins over there." He said, returning to what drew her attention earlier. "Volskygge. There are more of them than you think – the ground dips suddenly beyond what you see. The Elves that attacked barely caused a scratch."

"Were they the ones you attacked Solitude with?"

"They owed me. That favour is now spent, I wouldn't ride too close if I were you."

They were standing simply enjoying a lull of peace in the uncommon sunlight when Adilia noticed the bandits weren't the only heads bobbing on the horizon. Of all the days they'd spent together, Jorran had chosen this one to value the sight before him instead of checking over his shoulder. The day a team of hired mercenaries grinned at them with the prospect of the largest payment they'd ever seen shining in their eyes.

Adilia grabbed his shoulder as soon as she recognised their branded iron armour. "You sure those bandits don't owe you just a little more loyalty?" However when they looked over at the bandits' ruin they found they'd vanished into their huts.

"Stay back." He snarled and pushed her behind him. The mercenaries only grinned wider.

"Oh we're not here for the girl, Madman." Their leader reassured him with a sneer that showed off his permanently split lip. "Sure, we were sent to find her, but no, we came to kill any rabid wolves who've travelled too far from their pack."

"Witch!" Another spat.

Jorran smacked Nipper's rear to wake him up but the horse immediately bolted in the direction of Volskygge. The mercenaries roared with laughter.

"Even the beasts know your odds, Madman!" The leader clapped and came to a halt before they were within a fighting distance. Jorran swung his sword at them and crouched to a supple position, ready to leap and spin in any direction where blood could be spilt. "Come on." The mercenary smiled knowingly. "You can't get past us. You aren't really going to run away, are you?" On cue five of his friends brought forth bows and trained their arrows on the lone warrior.

"Jorran, there are sixteen of them. I've seen amazing feats of bravery but I've also seen stupidity. This would be the latter." Adilia hissed over his shoulder.

Instead of a reason to pause, he took it as a signal to leap. Before they could begin to be ready he dived into the circle of mercenaries. Adilia hit the ground to avoid the loosed arrows but most of them missed as they wildly try to catch their moving target. Three of the mercenaries had their throats slit before they could draw their weapons and another two killed each other as Jorran ducked beneath their blows. He brought down another on his own and struck his shield-brother down with his own sword. He was doing damage to their fringe but it didn't last long when they came to their senses. With the element of surprise lost he was surrounded in seconds. The mercenaries were grinning again and trampling over the bodies of comrades they no longer cared about when Jorran let out an ear-piercing whistle. The shrill outburst stunned the men for a short moment but it was cut off when a seemingly deaf mercenary lunged forward and used the opportunity to slice Jorran's exposed side. The Forsworn began to keel over with a grunt but caught himself in time for his plan to fall into place. Summoned by the whistle, Nipper charged through the mercenaries to reach him and Jorran leapt up onto his back with what adrenaline he had left. They immediately went to pick up Adilia but he wasn't planning on not having to stop. Before they could slow from a canter she mounted with a skill he hadn't expected and ripped the reins from his hands. Using Nipper's uninterrupted momentum she split the mercenaries like a tide to reach the other side of the clearing. The mercenaries all jumped aside with cries fearing for their toes under Tamriel's heaviest horse breed.

"Where do I go?" Adilia shouted after disturbing the hornet's nest for the mercenaries behind them by charging through Volskygge. The sheer amount of blood spilling out onto her leg was beginning to become more alarming to her than their attackers.

Jorran took the reins from her with a feebleness she'd never have expected from him. "Just keep him going. I need–"

"Pressure." Adilia finished and wrapped her arms around his slit waist as tightly as she could. "I've held in my brother's guts before."

Jorran snorted then winced harder than when she'd initially gripped him. "Careless?" He wheezed.

"Don't laugh." She said with a sudden surge of concern. She dug her heels into Nipper's sides and placed her head on Jorran's shoulder. Both to see where they were going and to keep him upright. "But yes, he was."

As she expected his head soon began to loll. After that came the slipping of his hands. Her solution was to keep her left arm around the wound to continue stemming the blood and take the reins with her right. Skyrim may be an unfamiliar land to her but she'd seen maps enough times to know where the roads led.

"Come on Nips, what are the odds he was heading for the Reach?" He didn't respond but in all fairness he was hurtling two grown humans along at a breakneck speed. They turned towards Dragon Bridge but the problem was she had never been this far east of the main road. Through blindingly bright green fields of goats and past a hostile Orc stronghold they fled. She eased him into a canter as the ground began to roughen and twist but for the sake of the man leaking his life force all over her she didn't dare go slower. The steadfast horse never tried to.

Judging by the rapid rate of his body falling against her, Jorran was still awake and in pain but he didn't try to stop her when she realised they'd long passed Dragon Bridge. She held him tighter but it wasn't for the blood flow which had now stemmed to a manageable trickle against her arm. They were now in the forbidden region, the Reach. Fraught with twisted blood magic as gnarled as its roots, savages who foamed at the mouth and wore naught but the remains of their kills, crooked crones who ate their babies and bewitched harmless citizens to give them new ones… The Martel sisters hadn't exactly been given a good reputation of it since their brother left them.

Either he sensed her disquiet from Nipper's sudden slowing or he recognised the wooden stakes of the village they approached because Jorran quietly took the reins again. Meaning he placed his hand over hers to show dominance to the tribe now watching them. She began to pull her hand away from his side in case that would help her appear less of a threat, but his sharp intake of breath stopped her. "Go." He murmured and placed his other hand over her arm. He was making Nipper veer around the village. She didn't need anymore encouragement to make her horse speed past the unblinking eyes following them.

They continued past several more like it and crossed a river deep enough that Jorran's blood spread in the fabric of her dress so much it turned brown. She was beginning to fear she was losing him when they came across a village less suspicious than the rest. In fact the young Forsworn woman picking herbs by the entrance was downright blasé when she noticed him.

"A horse this time, Jorran?" She asked, eyes rolling to the skies before she could look further behind him. "Wasn't it you who was telling everyone how easy they are to be tracked last week? I may be new to this but–"

Then Adilia found what he'd been saving his energy for.

"Uncle Jorran!" A little girl's voice cried, vibrating as she made it extend to last her entire run down the hill towards him. She only had one arm to wave with.

"Hey!" He smiled and sat up straighter, supporting himself so she wouldn't see anything wrong. The woman however, did.

"Oh…" She whispered and covered her mouth with her hand as the gaping flesh of his wound came into full view. Her basket of herbs and flowers fell to the ground.

"Looks like the horse isn't the only thing he found." A deep voiced hunter noted as he stared right past his chieftain to see Adilia.

Jorran's focus was on the little girl and they all rushed towards him as he tried to dismount. As she was unable to stop him, Adilia obligingly leant back and held her left arm up so he wouldn't slip backwards as he swung his leg over Nipper's neck.

"What did you do this time?" The woman sighed as he refused her efforts to try to support him when he landed. He hugged the little girl instead and ruffled her short hair.

"Enough, Eshne." He grumbled and tried to get back to his feet when Nipper distracted the little girl by gently chomping her hair with his lips. The chieftain needed their support then.

"He tried to save me." Adilia explained with a meek voice she didn't know she was capable of. Her stomach was doing all manner of acrobatics in comparison to her frozen body but the giggles Nipper was incurring from the child broke out a smile.

"And was successful by the looks of it." Eshne replied prudently as she poked and prodded at Jorran's wound. He tried not to show how he was wincing every time.

The gruff hunter who'd run forward from his post to help his chief glared up at her. Then he saw her neck and pulled out his axe. "She's city scum. What's she doing with Kale's pendant?" He demanded. Her heart felt like it had jumped out of her body even after Jorran had waved him down.

"This is the woman helping us take down the Bracken-Thrones. She brought me here of her own will when I was dead in her arms, if she was going to betray us I would be on an Imperial interrogation table." Jorran told him. The few sentences left him gasping for breath.

The little girl went wide-eyed at the story and Nipper went from her mind completely. She ran forward and smacked straight into Adilia's unbloodied leg, nuzzling against it to make up for the lack of a two-armed hug. "Thank you for saving Uncle Jorran." She whispered. Before Adilia could stammer reply the girl pushed one of the red flowers Eshne had dropped into her hands and shot back to the village faster than an arrow.

Adilia blushed down at the slightly crushed flower with a repressed smile that was causing dimples to appear. Nipper stretched his neck forlornly towards his new playmate, pulling the reins out of Adilia's hand and making her realise everyone was watching her to judge the newcomer's reaction.

"'Uncle?'" She asked Jorran when she found she was unable to come up with a reaction that would appease them all.

Jorran smirked, but it wasn't hostile. "By name only. That was Nia, her parents died after a sabrecat got into the camp. The beast took her arm and some poison got into her blood. It wasn't fatal but it weakens her daily. We don't know how long she has left so we make what there is as comfortable as possible. If she wants to call me her uncle, then I am."

Before either could react further, Eshne stuffed a handful of fresh herbs into Jorran's wound and a booming voice came down from the village.

"He's finally brought you down from that prison you call a home?!" A moustached Forsworn warrior grinned and jogged down to them, concurrent with Jorran's yelp at the intrusion of plants in his body.

"Herger!" Adilia grinned back, noting he was also proudly sporting a crushed red flower amongst his armour's tooth necklace.

"Chief, if you don't let me bind this wound now you'll drop before we get to the tent." Eshne warned him as he staggered. "If this woman is going to stay with us Herger could–"

"No."Jorran shook his head and looked up at Adilia. "Return to your sister. An arranged marriage is a grave sacrifice, but to a child-killer?" It wasn't only the blood loss that made his voice go weak.

"Ah. Another time then." Herger said delicately, but then he focused on Jorran's wound and his voice raised two octaves again. "By the Gods man, I just ate!"

"And what about you?" She asked stubbornly even though she picked up the reins. Nipper began to shift around in anticipation of moving again.

"My village has healers, I'll be fine." Said Jorran. Eshne grumbled something under her breath and he smirked. "Herger, take some of the hunters and follow her. I don't know how many mercenaries were left. Adilia…"

"Don't stop." She finished and urged her horse into a trot down from the village. "Until Sundas, Madman of the Reach." Horse and rider then took off at a gallop towards Solitude.

"Oh come on!" Herger complained as he ran back with four Forsworn warriors behind him. "She got a head start!"

"What did she call you?" Eshne asked. Jorran only smiled as he finally let her lead him away to the village. She looked back to watch the hunters turn left to try and cut corners to catch up with the strange woman. With a shrug she decided her chief was more important. After all, it wasn't often she got him to do as she asked.


	7. Chapter 7: Fraternising With the Enemy

Only one mercenary came close to capturing Adilia. Unlike his foolish comrades who were taken down from behind as soon as they made themselves known, he waited on the rocks along the road to Solitude.

"All you have to do is let me escort you to the gates, darlin'!" He cackled and began to draw his bow as far as it could go with Nipper's hindquarters in his sights. Adilia grimaced as she watched Herger's arrow strike through the bandit's chest before he could complete it.

"That's all of them!" Herger called as she thundered on to the city. It wasn't enough to make her feel safe until she was within its walls, however. She completely bypassed the stables and threw the reins into the hands of a guard the second she dismounted.

"Take care of him!" She barked and entered the city without pausing for breath. Even then she could feel eyes staring at every part of her. Heeding Jorran's advice she headed straight for Castle Dour, trying not to look at the Bracken-Throne residence on the way. So preoccupied was she with trying to think of what she'd say to Rona that she didn't find it odd that the foyer was absent of anyone. When she found their bedroom empty she went to the place only she would know Rona would go. The small library Charlize would never enter since she already owned half of its contents. Of course she was right, but it was completely the wrong timing.

Without considering knocking to approach her older sister, Adilia burst in to find her in the arms of their lifelong friend and manservant.

Braden broke the kiss when he noticed Rona's red and puffy eyes practically pop at the sight of the woman behind him.

"Ah, sorry." Adilia winced and began aimlessly pointing to the hall behind her. "I'll just… I'll go... now. Come back later. Ahem. Sorry." She then gracefully ducked out and shut the library's stained glass doors on Braden's appalled expression. She scuttled back to her own room with her arms firmly at her sides, but not before she heard Rona reassuring Braden that she'd speak to her.

Rona had come up behind her before the stunned expression of wired eyes and tightly pursed lips could have a chance to fade from Adilia's face.

"Are you going to say something?" She demanded before she could convince herself to back out of the room and pretend the intrusion never happened.

"Well!" Said Adilia in a perfect ladylike voice then stiffly spun around on her heel. "You, ah, you kept that one hidden well."

It was then Rona who was gasping as she saw her sister in full view for the first time that day. "Adilia! You're bleeding!" She cried and lunged to the beds. Adilia had to frown down at herself before she remembered that Jorran's blood almost completely coated her left side. The water of the Karth River had spread it more.

"So that's why everyone was staring at me…" She remarked before noticing what Rona was doing. "No, I'm fine!" She exclaimed and held out her hand before Rona split their sheets for bandages. "It isn't mine." She then floundered as she tried to make a story up on the spot that wouldn't alarm her. "It's… a friend's. He's fine now, with friends. We, um, accidentally disturbed some bandits and…"

"And we've already seen that Forsworn don't get along with bandits." Rona smiled insightfully, shocking Adilia into silence. "You think I haven't noticed?" She teased and regarded her sister's tooth necklace with a sparkle in her eye. "You leave the city you've been enthusing about for years to go on rides. On a horse you first compared to a mammoth when you were forced to leave our stallions at home! You stare at the mountains every time you can't go out and, oh, there's the Forsworn who you've never noticed watching you from them."

Adilia gaped at her. "And you've noticed all of this, but I've never heard about you and Braden?"

"Ah." Rona turned sheepish now the spotlight was on her again. "I'm your big sister, it's my duty to notice."

"That wasn't what I was asking and you know it." Adilia crossed her arms and began cornering her sister.

"Don't you want to change out of those clothes?" She asked timidly and backed up to the single bed's headboard.

"How long, Rona?" Adilia asked and made sure she blocked the path to the door.

Rona was wringing her hands like the friction they produced would free her but eventually she gave in with a sigh. "Do you remember the party at Count Fitzelrond's estate?"

"The one where we were all bored to tears because it turned out to be like a funeral?" Adilia nodded. "We retreated to the barn to race the horses then most of you started crying over Sean and by the time I got back you'd all split off into...pairs…" All Rona could do was nod at her sky-rocketing eyebrows. "You didn't! But… That was the first time we went out after Sean left...three years ago...that long?" Adilia staggered back.

"He was...supportive. Remember he'd known Sean just as long as we had and…" Rona was trying to rub away her embarrassment by kneading her neck. "If you're asking when we first kissed - that was when we were teenagers. We stopped it because of my status, but when Sean left… I'm glad we stopped holding back." She said the last part assertively and held her head up but as soon as she looked at Adilia she became abashed again. "How do you… What do you think?"

Adilia then cracked one of the biggest grins she'd ever pulled. With the strength of a wild beast she embraced her sister in a crushing hug. "I don't know if I'm more mad at myself for not noticing or at you for never telling me, but this is fantastic! You two are made for each other." She enthused and pulled away to let her breathe.

Rona laughed in giddy relief. "Well if it's any condolence nobody else noticed either. Nor have they about you and your friend."

"Honestly, I don't think they care." Adilia grumbled. Then her face was struck with horror. "And on Sundas you will be betrothed to Skegge." She could only describe her sister's reaction as watching a light die in her eyes. She pulled her into another hug, but this one was different. With every squeeze she imagined she was forcing the pieces of her sister to stay together. "Oh Gods, Rona… I'm so sorry." The wall she was staring at over Rona's shoulder began to blur. "This is…" Her hands curled into fists on Rona's back. "This is absurd."

"I know." Rona whispered back and pushed her away with an attempt at a smile before Adilia blew her top. "But enough about me, how has my sister started fraternising with a Forsworn?"

Adilia snorted. "It's hardly…" She started to ridicule but she stopped herself halfway. "Do you remember the boy from the Winking Skeever I befriended while you 'bought food' with Braden? He was the Forsworn's brother. Peter Bracken-Throne killed him in front of me the day those bandits attacked Solitude. This necklace is his."

Rona's complexion had become a pasty grey. "I knew he was unruly but I never expected him to be capable of… You aren't planning anything, are you?"

Adilia's eyes shifted before she smoothly changed the subject. "He isn't like what we've been told, you know. None of them are. Not the ones I've met anyway."

"I would hope not, our brother is one of them!" Rona laughed while eyeing her all the while. It wasn't smooth enough.

"You'd better tell Brady I'm not going to rat on you. I've seen skinned rabbits look less scared than he did."

"It's not just that, he cares about what you think too, you know." Rona replied with a return of the ever-so-slightly chiding tone of an older sibling.

"Ah, but you said 'not just'!" Adilia pointed out and they laughed.

"You'd better take a bath before our parents return." Rona noted, indicating the dried blood now caked on Adilia's limbs. She nodded with another small smile and they both ended up staring at their feet before Rona broke the charged silence with a fierce hug of her own.

"Be careful, Little Lia." She whispered into her sister's ear.

Adilia's voice became choked at the nickname she hadn't heard since she was five years old. "You'd better be coming up with one damn good escape plan." She sniffed back and left the room before she could cry.

Rona smiled after her. "Yeah." She sighed. It was like the well-wishes that guests gave an arranged couple at their wedding. They were necessary, but nobody ever believed them.

* * *

 **Loredas, the 8th of Sun's Dawn, 180 4E**

With the bloodied dress burnt and her body scrubbed clean, Adilia's excursion passed undetected and she slept through the night as peacefully as one fraught with worry could. She replaced her dress with the only one she could find, a formless dull white linen one and her old noble fur coat, and made her way down to the stables as soon as she'd spent enough time with her family to not raise suspicion.

All the way down she wrestled with whether she should go to check on Jorran or not. Would she remember the way? Would she be leading the Bracken-Thrones straight to him? She decided that visiting Nipper would calm her nerves regardless but it didn't matter, she never made it to the stables.

At the bottom of the road two guards were arguing over the horse they held in front of the city's carriage.

"How's it yours when you don't even know its name?" The one folding his arms asked.

"Well I don't know what she wanted me to do with him!" Cried the other with a firm grip on the solid brown horse's reins. "This woman just shoved him into my hands didn't she? 'Take good care of him' she said. Well I did, might as well put him to good use now hadn't I?"

"Still don't make him yours. What if she was talking to the guard on the other side, hm?" The arms-folder asked and prodded his own chest.

"Don't be ridiculous, were the reins shoved into your hands?!"

Adilia smiled and Nipper snorted at her like he was rolling his eyes. "I'll take it from here gentlemen, thank you very much." She said and lifted the reins from the guard's hands with an authority that left him stunned.

"S-see, tha's her! But all proper-like!" Was the only thing he could stammer to his friend.

"Mi'lady." His friend had the sense to bow and cuffed him as he went down. They all heard a muffled "Ow!" from within the helmet.

Adilia was about to mount and ride for the Reach when another voice sneered down from the wall above them. "Yes, little guards, do go and leave the lady in peace." A jingling pouch fell to their feet. They lifted it and ran, bickering over splitting its contents all the way.

"So! Now that we're alone, my lady. Long time no see. We haven't met for years." Peter Bracken-Throne grinned down at her. "Or was it the other week?" He pondered and stood to pace. Then he grinned at her again.

She looked back up towards Solitude's gates and find that every guard had vanished. There was no one to see them. Panic rose until she realised she had a horse.

"Oh no, don't run my lady." Peter tutted. "You don't want me to shoot your poor horse do you? You know I can." He was satisfied to see her move away from Nipper. "In fact, why bother with formalities? We're practically betrothed, Adilia." The way his tongue prolonged and rolled over the syllables in her name made her shiver. "So imagine my shock when my bride-to-be is the subject of a report from a hired sword I sent out to ensure her safety." He crouched down to see her discomfort more clearly. "Oh yes, thought you'd slipped them all? Well as it happens this scum is a coward. Has a scar through his mouth from being a coward. Right here." He mimed the location with his finger, watching her the whole time. "He hid when you galloped away and returned to me after nightfall, all to dutifully inform me that my lady has exchanged devoirs with a Forsworn!" His voice then dropped from a mocking frivolity to a very dangerous tone. "Fraternising with my enemy, bad move." Both his voice and his body shot up again. "When I saw you following that Forsworn runt I was willing to give your family the benefit of doubt, it's not right to shun the barrel because of one bad apple, but now?" He shook his head and sat on the edge of the wall with his legs dangling. "But luckily for you we are so eager to call your beautiful faces ours that we're changing the date!" He then jumped down and began to stalk towards her as mercenaries with the Bracken-Throne insignia branded onto their chests came out of all the places where the guards should have been.

"The betrothal is today." He smiled and stroked her horrified face with a finger that was as cold and sharp as a knife. "Skegge can't wait to meet your sister. I heard he beheaded five men just to get here fast enough…" He threw his head back with laughter when Adilia dived away from him and whipped a knife out of her belt.

"I know you can't understand me but you know where to go!" She shouted at Nipper and slashed his flank with the knife. "Find him! Go! Go!" She screeched as one of Peter's men grabbed her hands after a bored indication from him.

Nipper careened away beyond their sight with the whites of his eyes showing, but Peter only sighed. "You're sending off a horse? Your Madman can't help you now, my dear, I heard he was fairly banged up." He chuckled and waved at his silent men. "Bag her. I can't be betrothed to a tramp dressed like that."

Adilia began to kick and scream, but it was only seconds before the rough weave of a sack came over her head. The darkness came from something solid hitting her from behind.

Whispers woke her. They were hissing, frantic and indecipherable. She opened her eyes but the darkness was still there. Her eyelashes scratched against fabric, still being in the sack was her conclusion. The whispers became louder and hissed closer. One whisper turned into a yelp. They escalated as did her heart, the only thing she could clearly hear. The only thing she could clearly hear a moment ago.

Now there was nothing.

Her heart thudded.

Then, "You put the dress on her face, you idiot!"

The fabric was swept off her in an instant. The room she was in didn't have a lot of light to go by, darkness beyond a few candles, but it was enough to tell that the face hanging over hers was Rona's.

"Well I'm sorry if I can't tell where anything is in pitch black!" Snapped the impatient voice of a certain little sister. "These men will be lucky if they're partnered to women with their dresses not inside out, forget the right way around."

"Shush, I think she's... Oh thank the Divines." Rona smiled up at the ceiling and hid her head in her hands like some great weight had been lifted from her. "Are you alright?" She asked and stroked Adilia's cheek as she blinked blearily.

She didn't answer as she didn't know. "I really hope this isn't some sort of cell."

Rona sat back on her feet and pressed her hands between her thighs. "Oh, no. It's late now, you've been...asleep for a while."

"She thought Peter had killed you." Charlize gracefully broached the subject as she tried to struggle into an underskirt.

Rona glared through the smoke of the candles. "I did not." She huffed and turned back to Adilia. "But after what you told me… Never mind. We've been waiting for you for a few hours. I don't know what happened between you two but even his father was appalled when Peter brought you in."

"And how was that?" Adilia groaned and tried to sit up from the pallet she'd been laid on.

"Over his shoulder." Charlize mumbled from inside the folds of a satin blue dress she was pulling over her head. "It could have been romantic if it wasn't for you flopping all over the place. You really have to work on that unconscious pose."

"Oh really? No sign of a sack over my head?"

"What?!" Gasped Rona. "He said you fell!"

"It doesn't matter now." Adilia ground her teeth and rose to her feet. "If it's been hours has there been no sign of… Anyone else?"

Rona frowned at her lap before she got to her feet too. "No." She sighed and placed a hand on Adilia's shoulder to guide her away from Charlize's earshot. "Your friend isn't coming, with the amount of blood I saw on you yesterday… Well, he may not be going anywhere for a while. You know what will happen if we don't go through with this. This is our life now, let's not make a bad impression on it before it begins."

Rebellion flickered in Adilia's eyes brighter than any of the candles but for her sister's sake she swallowed it. "White?" She asked upon noticing the sleeve billowing from Rona's arm. "I thought we weren't doing the actual ceremonies yet."

Rona pulled her arm back and shrugged, picking at the silky fabric. "We aren't. Considering its significance I suppose they want a look at what they're in for."

"Or these are the only things they could find." Said Charlize as she threw the dress that was originally on Adilia's face into her arms. "Put it on, they picked them for us. And are waiting for us outside!" She then huffed off towards the door to try and look through the cracks. "Was Elijah really the ginger one?" She asked while pulling a face.

The only thing that Rona could do was give Adilia a crestfallen half-smile before following their sister. She bypassed oceans of pain and sacrifice just to keep a brave face for her sisters, all for a farce of a marriage. Adilia scowled down at the ruffles in her hands. That was the underskirt the top layer split over to reveal. The main fabric of the dress was red with dark stripes, Charlize's had a simple boat neck and Rona's sleeves were slit so they flowed. Only Adilia's billowed out beyond the waist and had a sleeveless, plunging neckline. Of course Peter had chosen the most revealing one for her. A month ago the dresses would have seemed plain to them but after so long in patched but warm rags, they felt divine. If only the feeling overcame how they felt inside.

Rather than the inner circle of Solitude's prison like Adilia still half-expected, a walk across the Castle Dour courtyard awaited them. Of their suitors there was no sign, but Lord and Lady Martel stood outside the door with varying stances. Their father stood tall with his hands clasped behind his back, astute and proper as expected but looked like he was sucking a lemon. Their mother attempted to do the same but ended up as bright-eyed and springy as Charlize. Both sported the fine clothes their children had been used to seeing them in, but enviably they had furs.

"Has it been called off?" Adilia asked their father glibly.

His greying eyebrow raised before he replied. "They went ahead to secure the forms."

Adilia nodded dramatically. "Just lazy then." She smiled, the veil over her hostility as thin as paper. "So we're finally going to see where they've been skulking all this time." Lord Martel only looked at her emptily.

"I don't know why you're so sour, it must have been that bump on your head!" Her mother burst in. "You're lucky Peter found you. Smile, darling, you're getting married! Of course it's only signing forms but I'm sure they'll hold a big party when we're presentable again. I'm so proud of you all!"

"Proud?!" Adilia choked. Rona elbowed her before she could burst into a tirade, fortunately for her Adilia was not used to a corset and couldn't recover from being winded quickly enough to start again.

"Remember this is an agreement, mother, a ransom." Rona said tactfully.

"Yes, well, somebody has to see the best of it." The light in Othella's eyes had dimmed, but not enough to jauntily trot ahead with Charlize to their destination.

"At least mother's happy." Rona glumly remarked to Adilia.

The fuming sister rubbed her rib and tried to catch her breath. "Or on skooma." She mumbled.

Rona didn't respond but the sudden stumble she had as Adilia said it was an amusing consolation for what was to come. Their death march was not long at all as they didn't need to leave the boundaries of Castle Dour. The doors Lord Martel held open for them were to the Emperor's Tower.

Adilia stopped outside of it in preparation for the guards who she expected to yell at them for trespassing, but no one batted an eyelid at a parade of nobles walking into the noblest tower in Solitude.

"Of course." She sighed and followed her family into the darkness.


	8. Chapter 8: I Am No Lady

There was no parlour in the Emperor's Tower, the throne greeted the entrance as soon as it was opened. It was not Titus Mede II who sat in it but under the current circumstances it might as well have been. Lounging back on it like it was a worn armchair was Renald Bracken-Throne, a heavy-set man with a trimmed beard and clothes regal enough to rival the High King. Two brass braziers nearly the height of the throne flickered on either side of him but their light did not reach far enough to stave off the shadows that engulfed the room, in fact the contrast made them darker. The huge candelabra hung unlit.

"There they are, I told you we'd meet again!" He grinned down at them and brought his hands together when he saw their outfits. "Oh and aren't they beautiful, boys? The documents are over there, Martel." He waved to the only table that was graced with some light from the windows around it. "Sit down, have a drink while I meet my daughter-in-laws, you'll be signing your name a lot."

Three silhouettes stood before them. One was impossibly tall compared to all the sleight Bretons, his arm thicker than his brother's head next to him. Another was leaning back on the wall in complete darkness, only his folded arms and crossed legs made it out into the meagre moonlight filtering through stained glass. The third was instantly recognisable to Adilia, his moustache had its own shadow, but he turned away before he could so much as look at her.

"I want her bound." He called out to the room in general. Adilia heard the brother in the shadows sigh before all the people behind her gasped.

"Now, Peter…" His father began to placate him.

"You didn't see her when she lunged for my throat, father. I fear for her more than myself." He smirked, the hulking Skegge had stripped off one of the many leather straps on his belt and was binding Adilia's hands with it before he'd begun speaking.

"When I what?!" Adilia outright laughed until Skegge shoved her down to her knees. "Hey! You cur!" She barked as she only just pulled up in time to avoid cracking her head on the floor.

Peter tutted. "Watch that mouth, my dear, you don't want me to bring out the gag already do you?"

"You told us she fell!" Said Othella in the only time she would defend her daughter.

"Oh, she did." Peter sneered as Skegge stood beside him once more. "When my men hit her hard enough to make her break her hold. You see, Lady Martel, I fear this harsh sea air has not been good for your daughter. It was not one eve ago that I learnt she has been keeping the company of those... savages known as Forsworn."

Both Lord Martel and Charlize jolted in alarm but the gasp that came from Othella was the loudest of all. "Adilia?! I knew Sean was always a bad influence but this…"

Adilia leered at Peter in disbelief. "Mother, you can't really believe this twerp-" The slap that cracked across her face sounded louder than any gasp.

"I am not the mother of any sympathiser to those vermin in their caves of filth." Othella spat and regarded her only in disgust. She walked away to her husband's side and Peter held his hands up, but he was enjoying himself too much to sound genuine.

"Now now, not disowning the goods before I marry her, are we?"

Adilia glared at the carpet she knelt on to block out the horrified looks of sympathy from her sisters. She wasn't sure if the trickle on her cheek was blood or a tear.

"Well now," Renald remarked in the silence. "Children will be children! I'd say it reflects well on my son that he's willing to stay by her side despite this….misconduct. Wouldn't you say, Othella?"

"Most certainly, my lord."

Adilia bored further holes into the ground. Deferring to a Bracken-Throne now? She thought.

Scratch scratch scratch. Lord Martel's quill grated in the background, signing away their freedom.

"I'm sure that she'll come to her senses soon. Now, Rona wasn't it? You've never met Skegge. Elijah, stop lurking in the shadows and be a man. Your bride-to-be has had a shock."

While Renald sprang down from the throne's steps to play the generous host with the two eldest children, Elijah approached the suddenly shy Charlize. He had the civility to take her hand first and spoke softly, even though he didn't try to hide that the whole situation was making his skin crawl. He never directly looked at Adilia but every time his gaze passed over her she saw no hostility. In fact he seemed humiliated, but before she could chase his looks further another man strode into her sights.

"Didn't I hear Skegge is a war general, Renald?" Othella gushed with enough enthusiasm to compensate for their disinterested children, unable to stop herself diving into his hospitality.

"Oh yes, and a hero at that, right son? The Great War may have ended but that's not enough for him!" Renald burst into a reel of all Captain Bracken-Throne's achievements.

Peter wagged his eyebrows at Adilia, sneering at the conversations they could hear. His painfully sharp nail stroked her cheek. It didn't break the skin but its dent left a pink trail all the way to the nape of her neck, then lower.

She only needed him to look at her and the pure, raw hatred burning in her eyes. So much that it made her shake. Peter didn't stop his advance towards her but he pulled back, just a little. The tiniest flinch that made her smirk at him for once.

Then everyone flinched. A Legion banner had fluttered in the darkness where Elijah had once stood. The scratching of Lord Martel's quill stopped. There was no door or window left open to provide a breeze. Nothing else had moved.

"W-what was that?" Othella asked.

Peter looked back at his betrothed with a frown but found no hint of a smug indication that she had a plan. Only hatred. It was the last thing he ever saw.

With everyone looking at the left wall nobody was watching the shadows of the right. A toothed sword sliced through Peter's throat and his head dropped to Adilia's knees. His moustache still had a shadow.

Three things happened at once. Charlize started screaming and dropped to the floor as the spray of blood from Peter's severed neck momentarily blinded her and Adilia. Four other Forsworn emerged from the shadows all at once to engage all the present men in combat, meaning they all jumped on Skegge. Peter's body crumpled to meet his head but Adilia's attention was only held by the man behind it.

"Jorran!" She beamed despite the pandemonium around them and the lukewarm blood spreading into the carpet she knelt on. The relief flooding through her made the moonlight feel like sun rays.

He instantly leant over her to cut her bonds and she was gifted with the sight of padded wads of bandages winding over where his rippling stomach muscles would usually be displayed. "You're alright." He said, perhaps more for himself than her. Before either could comment further he was hit in the back by a blunt blow from Renald. However instead of falling forwards, his spine curved backwards and straightened like he was hit by lightning. The grunt he gave out only lured the man into a false sense of victory, Jorran was on his feet and charging towards him before he could blink.

"Adilia!" A voice called behind her with the uncertainty of someone who had never heard how the name was pronounced before. She'd just gotten to her feet to find Elijah had gathered her family and was herding them towards the opening to the right of the throne room. "We need to get to the bridge!" He beckoned, looking to the door revealed that a Forsworn she'd never seen before was blocking it and making faces at her still-screaming mother.

A look to the other end of the room showed that it was now Renald and Skegge against five Forsworn warriors. The Breton lord who had gotten too comfortable with his pies and fine furs was fighting well, even if he was hiding behind the throne after every other blow. Then what really made Adilia run was the arrows that flew from the Forsworn at the door. There was nowhere to hide as death blows swung from every angle and Rona's outstretched hand was the safest place.

"Let's go!" Elijah roared over the sounds of battle. Flames began to crackle, a brazier had been knocked over. They didn't need his hands on their backs to make them run up the stairs faster than they had as children.

"You're not fighting with your family?" Adilia asked him, the survival instinct was not enough grounds for trust. Especially considering he just watched his brother be beheaded.

"The idiots were asking for it." He shouted back as they made it to the hallway, making her stop in her tracks for a second. The Martel parents blasted into the Emperor's bedroom before they found the right one. They were the first out, but they were also the first back in.

The cool late-evening air brought calm to their minds only for a moment. The freedom that stretched before them in the form of a walkway was deceiving, a young urchin pelted towards them from the towering windmill on the other side. "They're coming up the tower!" He screeched with flailing arms.

Screams began to drift up from the city below. The two groups of those running out and the ones running back in collided with each other at the doors. The boy slipped past them unnoticed.

"Back to the courtyard!" Elijah told the Martels and ushered them all inside before he slammed the doors shut on the emerging Forsworn.

However, the castle was no better than outside. The scattered embers that had crackled now roared. An overwhelming wall of heat suffocated them as soon as they made it back to the stairs and the shadows in the throne room were obliterated by blinding flames.

"We can't go down while the barbarians are still there!" Charlize shouted through trying to clear her eyes of the smoke.

Elijah was looking back and forth between the direction of the doors that were now being hammered by Forsworn, and the stairs. Being composed entirely of stone saved them from being engulfed but Charlize was right, four Forsworn were now backed up in front of the door they needed to get to.

"What are they doing?" Rona asked. They were peering around the corner of an arch that looked down on the throne room but dared not get closer. The Forsworn were looking fearfully towards the flames, but their apprehension didn't make sense to any of the nobles above. Adilia ran for the edge as soon as she found there was one specific Forsworn not in the line-up.

"Stay back!" Rona hissed and reached out to grab the trailing sleeve she expected Adilia to have, forgetting she had none. Adilia clung to the side of the arch in horror. Now she had a full view mostly unobstructed by smoke plumes she could see that Renald Bracken-Throne was backed up in a corner behind the frozen Forsworn, coddling some kind of injury. The only ones who remained near the throne and the fire were Skegge and Jorran. The latter was a fearsome fighter but she should have realised even he could not last long with such an injury. Skegge had him in a hold that echoed the one Jorran had used on her when they first met, but it was cold steel that hovered over his throat rather than bone. The yellowed linen bandages around the Forsworn's waist were deep brown with blood and his legs sagged beneath him.

"Now the savage will get what he did to my brother." Skegge seethed at Jorran's men who were unable to do anything but watch for fear of Skegge slicing his throat.

"For what he did to mine." Jorran wheezed. "When will the cycle ever end, Bracken-Throne?"

"You don't want to watch this." Rona murmured into Adilia's ear. She instantly turned away, but it wasn't to hide in her sister's arms. A ceremonial knife lay on the table behind them. It was such a bright silver that it was almost white and was embellished with jewels. Adilia couldn't tell if it was blunt, it looked sharp but that's all it was for, looks. It was all she had.

"What's she doing?" Charlize asked from their father's arms.

"Lady Adilia..." Elijah began to forewarn as she backed up against the bookshelves to get a clear view of the arch.

She looked back at him. "I am not a lady." Then Rona screamed as she ran and leapt.

The distance from the base of the arch to the throne room was not far but combined with trying to avoid flames, her landing was not an easy one. Nor was it quiet as she clattered and stumbled over the fallen brazier. All the Forsworn watched her with stupefied expressions she would normally have found comical, but right now all that mattered was that her target had not heard her over the burning of the fire. He stood before her and seemed twice her width and height. A Breton barely past being a girl against a half-Nord battlemaster. He held Jorran in front of him so smugly, he had the ultimate insurance of his safety even though it left them all at a stalemate. Yet his rear was unguarded. His neck was so exposed its pale skin gleamed, not even hair covered it as he'd shaved it for the army. Adilia wavered with the knife in her hand. Could it really be so simple? Could she actually… Could she? Her grip on it began to loosen.

Jorran's blood dripped onto the floor beneath him. Her eyes focused on it like a hawk finding traces of its prey. The body of the man he'd saved her from still lay on the floor, the lone head with its face frozen in fear was angled towards the flames. The hand around the knife tightened and her strides towards Skegge began to turn into a jog. She stopped a hair's breadth behind him, only level with his height because she stood on the throne's platform. She didn't need to look back to know the horror on her family's faces but the Forsworn were acting a little differently. Looking over Skegge's shoulder she saw Herger draw a finger across his neck. Skegge cocked his head at him in confusion, making the back of his neck shine in the light of the fire.

"The cycle ends today." Adilia whispered. He only had a millisecond to reflect the deathly strike of fear that went through him before the little knife sliced through the top of his spinal cord in one, swift motion.

Skegge's body fell to her feet. She stared at it. His blood dripped from her knife, some had spilled onto her fingers. The Forsworn darted forwards to reach their chief and up on the next floor Elijah had the sense to rush the Martels towards the suddenly clear door.

Jorran twisted around from where Skegge had dropped him to see the killer who was likely to move onto him next. Instead he stared up at Adilia and how her pale hair waved against the flames bursting forth behind her, white against their orange. However, when she looked down she saw not the fear that was in her family's eyes, it was awe.

The moment was broken by the one Forsworn who'd stayed by the door. "You don't really think you're going to get past me, do you?" Herger grinned and waved his axes at Elijah.

"Herger, let them past!" Adilia yelled.

Herger compliantly turned into an honourary doorman. "Yeah… You'd better just go really quick." He mumbled and held open the door he'd been blocking. The urchin who'd darted past them on the bridge shot out, but not before Renald Bracken-Throne took the chance to slip out amongst the Martels.

Pained grunts came from the wounded chieftain as he picked himself off the ground but he scowled at Adilia whenever she started to try and help him. His hand reached out to her through the flames. "The fire will not rest until it has consumed everything!" He shouted and shook his proffered hand to try and get her attention.

She stood numbly with the bloodied knife in hand as she tried to register that the flames were now licking the trim of her dress. The alarm of impending death if she stayed was ringing in her mind but she couldn't get her body to react accordingly. His hand was observed with equal apathy and shallow breaths struggled to get out of her. A blast of flames momentarily blocked her view of her family and they subsided to reveal widened eyes frantically searching for them.

Jorran limply pulled back his rejected hand. "Go." He said as he saw how she stared after them.

Adilia blinked back at him. The unexpected move prompted her to regain control and step down from the flaming platform. Her heart was torn in two directions but before it could rule, her mind reminded her of how she was too used to being told what to do.

"The rest of your people are upstairs." She told him and ran after her family. Regret bit at her heels every step of the way.

Herger watched her fly past him with confusion. "Jorran?" He asked when she'd gone.

"Our hunt is not over, you heard what she said." Jorran growled and his friend darted towards the stairs without question. The chieftain's hand was still held open.


	9. Chapter 9: An Old Story

The nobles spilled out into the courtyard and simply stopped. All except for Renald who took off at a sprint towards the Blue Palace with three Forsworn at his heels. None of them gave the Martels one flicker of interest and they were left alone in cold silence once more. Elijah was bracing himself on his knees and without his guidance all the women could do was back away from the tower as far as possible.

"Just like that." The ginger heir mumbled. "All my father ever owned, under my control." He panted at the floor like that would give him a clearer explanation.

"Don't write him off yet, the man's still alive." Lord Martel pointed out.

"Do you really think they'll let him go?" Elijah snapped and straightened up with a sigh.

Rona looked back at the tower whose blue windows were flickering yellow. "It won't take them long to get their people off the bridge."

"I'll go and tell the captain of the guard." Said their father and ran off in the opposite direction to Renald. It took him right past his second daughter, but he looked at none of them. Adilia just stood there as if stunned, moving back slightly in the breeze as he passed.

They all watched this unfold and looked aside as soon as Adilia stirred to look at them, Elijah stared the elephant in the room right in the eye.

"Skegge was a war hero but everybody forgets how many innocents he beheaded to get there." He said and put his hands on her shoulders to make sure she looked at him. "Now they can rest. Peter… He was always a twisted bastard."

Behind them Othella simply stuttered while Charlize stared. Though she did inch away from her mother and closer to them.

"And your father?" Adilia asked as he walked away.

He paused. "… He's my father." Then he moved to Rona's side. "We need to get your family out of here." He murmured.

Rona nodded and looked up at the city's walls, where the Forsworn wouldn't be running amok and causing havoc. Elijah followed her line of sight and stopped on the most elaborate building in front of them.

"For some reason I don't think the Forsworn follow the Eight." He said and herded Othella and Charlize in front of him. "Come on, we move into the temple."

Adilia and Rona followed him into the gated courtyard and through to the building. No worshippers or priests were around at this hour and Othella rushed forward to throw herself before the shrines.

"Oh thank the Divines!" She gasped and Charlize sat on the first pew she could find, unusually quiet.

"We should be able to wait here until it's safe. There will be food and drinks upstairs." Elijah said vacantly and sat on a pew in the opposite aisle, staring at his hands.

"That's a really good idea, let's go and look." Rona said and gripped Adilia's hand in a vice to lead her upstairs. Elijah didn't look back but as she was dragged past the small windowless squares situated over the aisle Adilia noticed Charlize giving her a small smile.

When she was certain they'd reached a room with a decent amount of privacy Rona let go of her sister and span to face her. She looked at a laid table beside them without any appetite and chewed over her words before she spoke.

"When you first told me about the Forsworn I thought it was a passing phase, an act of rebellion towards our parents for putting us in this situation. But when I saw how you looked at him… Like I look at Braden. Like he was the sun." She laughed at herself and began to become more animate. "Charlize was screaming bloody murder when he killed Peter but you… You didn't even flinch. Then when you leapt out of that arch… The look on your face, Lia, there was nothing you wouldn't have done to save him, and it's terrifying."

Rona fell silent and Adilia scrutinised every movement she made. Of all that had happened this was scaring her the most. "What are you saying?" She asked so quietly it turned into a whisper.

"I'm saying you have a chance." Rona smiled meekly. "It's over for me. Elijah and I both have families we need to secure, we can do that together. I'll have a baby soon. Then another. You know how it goes, producing all the heirs. They'll stamp out Charlie's spark, strap her into a corset and turn her into a proper lady. You never wanted to be a part of this, not even when we were children. The door's right over there. Go, let the blondes be the only ones with any sense of sanity in this family."

"But Rona…" Adilia said, not sure if she was smiling or crying.

"Don't look so glum. I'll be fine, Elijah isn't so bad. Brady and I have already said our goodbyes, we knew this wouldn't last." She then sniffed along with Adilia. "You know, Sean left us in the dead of night without a word. The only thing I regret is not being able to support him."

The girls embraced in the last and tightest hold they would ever have. "Thank you." Adilia whispered into her big sister's shoulder, tears freely flowing down her face.

"I love you, Adilia. So does Charlie, don't forget that." Rona squeezed harder in an attempt to fill the vacant space of their parents' names.

When they pulled apart Adilia only smiled. Her throat was so thick she couldn't have said anything even if she knew what words to say. The sisters didn't need them, they both had no illusions about what this meant. Before she left, Adilia kissed her on the forehead. After having her hair ruffled by Rona one last time, she was gone.

Out in the darkness of Solitude's walls she almost broke down several times. She'd remember Rona's last words to her and her legs would wobble as if trying to make her go back for more. She began to get in more of a rhythm, a steady walk with a determination not to look back. It allowed her to begin to pay more attention to her surroundings but once she did, she stopped to frown and look around her. This was the capital city of Skyrim, yet there were no guards on its walls. She bunched her skirt in her hand and began to tear down the walkway as soon as it hit her. Forsworn had been seen in the city. They were already on the ground.

Her heart beat faster than a hare's. The most dangerous and reckless thing she'd ever done was almost complete. All the guards she'd passed on the way down the city gate's right tower were too busy with the attack to notice a young woman going in the opposite direction. Not one thing had gone wrong. Then Braden burst into the same alcove she had stopped for breath in.

They panted at each other, frozen in place by realisation of the other's potential to bring down their lives. Neither had spoken since Adilia had burst in on him and Rona. Then Braden noticed her sideways glances towards the window and the forest beyond it.

"It's an old story, the repressed noble who fell in love with the free people of the wilds. It didn't start with your brother and I don't think it will end with him." He paused. Those were the most open words he'd ever spoken to her. "I didn't approve when your brother left. He told me the day before. He'd fallen in love but in acting for it he left an explosion behind him. You… don't have that."

Adilia regarded the tortured man before her. "I know what you've sacrificed for us. You've always been a brother to us, and I don't just mean after Sean."

He laughed quietly. "No, you don't. Maybe one day, but now? You have no idea." He smiled sorrowfully and looked to the open arch that showed two familiar silhouettes on Solitude's bridge. "I always dreamt of seeing Rona in a dress like that. Just, with a different man…" Sighing, he turned back to her. "You know, I think I have a mind to accidentally open the gates for the Forsworn… Goodbye, sister." He then turned and left without another word. It was the greatest freedom he could have given her.

As Braden predicted the Forsworn were grouped together in front of the city gates. There were fifteen altogether, most seemed unharmed and all who could wield a bow were aiming at and trying to hold off the guards. Herger was the first to notice Adilia exiting the tower, but given her vivid attire it didn't surprise her.

"Hoy!" He beckoned her with an astounded grin before any of his fellow Forsworn could mistake her for an enemy. "Didn't expect to be seeing you so soon, O' Lady of the Flame." He then bowed with tongue in cheek as she approached.

"What did you just call me?"

"Didn't you see your hair when you killed that Nord? It was whiter than the heart of the fire!" He enthused. She shook her head at him as more important issues came into her mind. Such as why the chief's right hand was without his chief.

"Where is…" She asked as she scanned the ranks of Forsworn fanning out before them. Then she faded off as she saw one archer aiming for a target completely apart from the others. That target was a man on the bridge between the Emperor's Tower and the windmill tower that wound down to the docks; a viable escape now that the Forsworn were no longer there. Flames from fire pits on the tower framed his ginger hair, beside him was a woman in white.

"No!" Adilia leapt towards Jorran, knocking aside several Forsworn during her graceless escapade. Just as he was perfecting his shot she stood in front of him. The look of confusion he gave the bruised, dishevelled, ashy and red-faced woman glaring at him was a sight. He discarded the questions he had for the issue that was quite literally staring him in the face.

"He's the last Bracken-Throne, Adilia. Get rid of him and this is complete. Your family is free, just like you wanted." He stood and tried to push her aside, but she was channeling all her stubborn tendencies into this moment.

"Free my family and you kill them. They couldn't handle it. This ended when you killed Peter, you don't need to carry on. Kale doesn't need you to carry on."

Jorran hesitated briefly but sidestepped her again. Five silhouettes were now on the bridge, three of them seeming to bicker with Rona and Elijah. Jorran pulled back the bowstring. He already had the perfect angle for Elijah's heart, he just needed to loose the arrow.

Words had failed and she dared not barrel into him while his midriff still bled. For a lengthy argument there was no time, so with every single party watching she did the only thing she knew would work.

With hands as gentle as the feathers he wore she angled his face down to hers and placed her lips on his. The bow and arrow dropped to their feet. He stood there for a moment, hardly daring to move, then tentatively he began to respond. She could practically feel the doors to her family and everything that had been her life slam shut behind her, but the windows opened to so much more. She only pulled back when his slackened arms tenderly held her.

"They've chosen their lives, let us choose ours." She smiled up at the war-painted man whose disbelieving pale eyes were making him seem as young as his late brother.

It took a moment for him to remember how to form words. "You're… You want to come with me?"

She bit her lip and grinned, she couldn't help using a sly tone on his vulnerable state. "Preferably before Solitude's guards kill us all, yes."

"Ah." He stared at her for a few more moments before he shook himself out of the daze. His arms fell from her body and she was inwardly kicking herself for ending the moment when the great doors opened. "We move out!" Jorran called to his men in a voice that was trying far too hard to be gruff.

Behind where Jorran had stood was Herger. "So, uh, I guess we won't be needing to find an extra tent for you then?" He asked her.

"Herger…" Adilia grinned. "Are you blushing?"

The Forsworn began to shuffle his feet and twitch his moustache. "I…Well…I knew this would happen but Jorran isn't usually the…uh…romantic type and…" He was saved by the source of the fondest sound Adilia had ever heard charging through the open doors and butting its head past him.

"Nipper!" She grinned and hugged the head that bumped into hers. The horse nickered and nibbled the unfamiliar ruffles of her skirts as she mounted him.

"He came into the village like a thunderbolt, scared the children half to death." Herger started conversationally as they all fled the closing city doors. "When we saw that scratch on him I told Jorran it was nothing but…" He fell silent as somebody came up behind them. That somebody grabbed Nipper's saddle and mounted up behind her. "Yeah, he has the grounds to ignore me for a while now."

Herger drifted into a tirade about who she'd meet at the village but the breath on her neck was blocking out all her other senses. It was haggard and exhausted but as Herger started about a sly girl called Brannan who spent too much time in the cities, she felt something rough but warm slink over her hand. Adilia closed her fingers around Jorran's with a shy smile. She turned her head to look at him but before she found his eyes, she was drawn to a light in the tower next to Solitude's doors. It was bright but blocked by the silhouette of a man she once called a manservant and a brother. It waved once before it vanished, then the only light Adilia was drawn to was reflected in Jorran's eyes.

Rona had told her she looked at Jorran like he was the sun but she couldn't have been more wrong. It was the moon that lit the slithers of pale, pale blue. Adilia smiled up at them and in return she watched them crinkle up as he looked at her as if seeing the stars for the first time. She turned back around and slouched back against him, feeling more safe and warm than those city walls had ever made her. Her eyes closed and she tried to keep his fresh in her mind.

They were like starlight.


	10. Chapter 10: Epilogue

Over a month later Adilia would be presented during a meeting of tribes from across the Reach, an organisation of patrol routes. It was a dull and frankly terrifying affair, she stayed near the horse she refused to give up in favour of an elk, rather than mingle with men of muscle who were more beastly than their varied mounts. Doing so enabled her to be on the outskirts to watch a smaller and very, very late tribe arrive to the meeting.

Their chieftain blankly stared at her for enough minutes for his wife to be concerned, and two small children wrap around his legs like an extra pair of boots. Adilia looked away every time she tried to check if he was still staring at her but she couldn't help thinking one of the young one's toothy grin looked familiar.

Then the chieftain spoke, the same grin slowly eased across his face all the while. "When I heard Jorran had taken a mate I was shocked, but I never expected this!" His voice had the harsh flick of the Reachman accent but she knew it. Oh how she knew it.

The usual excuses she'd have for welling up with tears vanished from her mind. "You've grown a beard." She sniffed thickly, even though all she could see through the tears was a head of blond hair.

"Yeah, guess I couldn't be bothered shaving any more." The man also sniffed, trying to sound as indifferent and affronted as her. He then laughed up at the sky, trying to hold back from crying in front of his family. "I'd be, you know, running up to you and giving you a bear hug and a piggy back ride you'd never escape right now but these sprogs are kind of making it hard to move." He waved down at his children and Adilia simultaneously gasped and laughed. She shook her head and stumbled, forgetting how to move in the shock. She stumbled again and started running, trying to shake the rapidly falling tears off her face before she got to him.

It didn't work. "Sean!" She gasped as she smacked into him and broke into a blinding grin.

He held her tightly and rocked side to side, made a little awkward by her niece and nephew. "Adilia. Oh Gods, Adilia…" He sniffed deeply and buried his head into his sister's hair. "Only you would make me brother-in-law to the bloody Wolf of the Reach!"

They both broke out into hysterical laughter that was interrupted by gulps and sobs. When they'd regained some composure he introduced her to his family of three, and an impending four. Many stories would be shared over the years to come, but before then another month would pass…

Adilia laid back on the soft grass that had only been gently trimmed by elk and smiled. The sun shone a cocoon of heat behind her closed eyes and the rush of the waterfall splashed her a gentle lullaby. Its chorus was interrupted by the disturbance of two approaching footsteps and a body lowering itself to the ground beside her. When that led to her splayed hand being enclosed in one much rougher and larger than her own, her heart swelled to the amount that she could consider her scene complete, but it wasn't. Not quite yet.

For weeks she'd agonised over how to tell him, but she was no longer in a world where a life could hang in the balance of one word phrased incorrectly. Why say anything at all?

Without a flicker of hesitation in her tranquil expression, she took the hand that would never willingly let go of hers and placed it on her stomach.

The hand tensed up instantly as it felt a small bump under the furs of her dress. Her curiosity to see his expression was too strong to resist. She wasn't disappointed. In contrast to her tranquility, Jorran's eyes had shot open immediately and he'd frozen into place.

"Does this mean…?" He murmured.

"Why Jorran, your eyes are wider than your elk's." She chuckled. To any eavesdropper his question was left unanswered, she only bobbed her head once and snuggled closer to him.

That was all he needed. He slid his other arm beneath her neck and cradled her head, burying his into her shoulder and pale hair. She was unable to see his face but if the wildlife at peace around them could talk, they would swear the most solemn chief in the Reach shed tears that day.

Seven months later the walls of that clearing would echo with the cries of a boy whose blonde hair was as light as the rays of the sun. "Kale." An exhausted Adilia would sigh. "I once knew a boy named Kale…"

"Kale?" Jorran repeated, full of skepticism. "Our son will be a chieftain, is it wise to name him after a cabbage?"

"We can spell it differently, my foolish husband." Adilia chided as she lost herself in the pure blue eyes of her wailing newborn. He quieted as soon as he was cradled against her chest. "Without your brother he would not exist."

"And that will make a difference?" He asked although the edge in his tone faded as he put an arm around his wife and let his son grasp his little finger with all the might his tiny fist had. "A chieftain does not need to write."

"Mine will." Adilia smiled and rested her head on the nook where his neck met his shoulder. "In fact…" She placed her free hand over his and guided his finger along the ground. "C. A. E. L." She traced with him, their fingers leaving the faintest trail of it. "If it's the only word you'll ever let me teach you, let it be that one."

"Cael." Jorran whispered with a voice full of wonder. He stroked the side of their baby's face tenderly and kissed her forehead. He didn't break away, only kept his head on hers as he, too, was trapped in Cael's eyes. Adilia closed her eyes and rested against him in pure bliss.

She would treasure the years to come like each was the last. If only she knew how few they were…


End file.
